Atwood Gives Bitter, Sweet the Nod

“Aren’t you the author of Bitter, Sweet?”

I turn around; a strange feeling comes over me, as I come face to face with Margaret Atwood. She’s a tiny woman, with a spark in her eyes, and a faint look of amusement on her face.

“Yes, I am,” I say feeling shy. I keep my words to a minimum. I don’t want to come off sounding like a gushing fool. But look at that, I never in a million years thought I’d be recognized by Margaret Atwood. I wanted to die!!!!!!

“You’re book is lovely, simply lovely,” she adds.

Nice piece of fiction that was, huh? Okay, so it was nice to daydream for a few seconds, and as Margaret Atwood said last evening, fiction writers do make up lies…. Still, it was kind of fun to pretend even if I giggled all the way through writing it.

Now for the real story.

Tuesday evening was the Champagne and Sunset with Margaret Atwood event at the Best Western. We arrived early and went into the conference room to look around.

All these books, written by Margaret Atwood; pretty impressive I’d say. This didn’t include all of her published works, mind you. I noticed a few titles were not present.

Yes, there was champagne, and the “maritime snacks” that were promised did not disappoint B or I–bacon wrapped scallops, salmon and cream cheese, quiche, to name a few. I was in heaven.

Before the event began, we stood in awe as we noticed Margaret circulating the room. She stopped right beside us, and said hello. I of course took the opportunity to tell her about the our kids having given us the tickets as a gift—like she’d remember that story the next day, but hey, you only get one shot, right?

One gentleman asked her how old she was when she wrote her first novel. She politely replied six or seven, and that it was a novel about an ant.
“There were a lot of plot problems,” she said, with a small grin. You’ve got to love her sense of humour.

Later, she took the podium, delighted us with some wonderful stories about how her father and mother met, and who all in Nova Scotia is related to her. Nope, I’m afraid no Best’s in that family tree. We were also treated to a reading before it was time to have our books signed.

The line was long. We didn’t make our way to the back of the line immediately, but stayed on the sidelines as I was hoping to get some more photos. At one point she motioned for someone, anyone, in our direction to come over, and no one made a move. I had no idea what she wanted but thought I’m going to find out. Turned out, two women wanted their photo taken with Margaret, and she wanted someone to snap the picture. Hey, that was the least I could do.

Finally, it was my turn. B was determined to get some clear shots. All evening I was having difficulty finding the right setting on my camera. Many of the shots I took in the dim light didn’t turn out. So he asked if she minded if he took some photos of the two of us. He snapped three to make sure he’d at least get one good one.

Upon reflection, I’m thinking I should have asked for her email address so that I could send her a copy. Do you think she would have fallen for that one? Nah, probably not.

So that’s it. A great evening with lots of pictures that definitely won’t get deleted off the camera before I have time to make copies.

Posted by Laura Best on August 24, 2011

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