I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Monday, March 7th.

The writer Margaret Atwood is with us now, and I'm so thrilled. We get a Margaret Atwood two for today. She's here for her new

book called Burning Questions, Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021. And she's here to

continue our series on friendships in adulthood that started with Jennifer Sr. from the Atlantic

last week and is inspired by Jennifer's article on how friendship

changes in middle age. Well, Margaret Atwood responded to Jennifer's article, first on Twitter

and then in an interview that they did on the Atlantic site, the original tweet from Atwood,

who is 82, said, wait till you get really old. it will all change again, punctuated by a smiley emoji.

So even as people never stopped talking about her 1980s book, A Handmaid's Tale, which unfortunately

seems increasingly relevant at the Supreme Court and in Texas and many other places today,

we are honored to have for a twofer on her book and her responses on friendship, Margaret Atwood.

Ms. Atwood, so nice of you to come back on the show. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you. A pleasure to be there.

I'll start with the book, and let me say that even with the warm weather in New York this weekend, I think the most joyful part of my weekend

was reading a number of the essays in your book, including the introduction, which is practically

a history of the world from 1960 to the present in eight pages. So first, thank you for your work.

And you reference your 2003 book, Orix and Craig, from your Matt Adam, is that how you say it?

Trilogy.

Matt Adam plotted around the climate crisis and of all things a pandemic.

And as you write in 2003, these premises seem remote.

Now not so much.

What got you to writing stories about a pandemic like 20 years ago?

...