'Writing Margaret Atwood' community blog launched

In anticipation of the March 31 visit to Oklahoma by literary legend Margaret Atwood, USAO is sending out a call for people to participate in a community-wide writing project called Writing Margaret Atwood. The renowned author will present a public lecture during the upcoming Emerson-Weir Liberal Arts Symposium.

Each participant will be asked to read and respond to a work of Atwood’s and agree to have it published on a special blog on the USAO website located at /home/resource/writing-margaret-atwood.

The Writing Margaret Atwood mini-site has a form that allows the participant to directly input his or her contribution.

As contributions come in, the blog will develop into a resource for the community to better know and appreciate Atwood’s work before her arrival.

The secondary goal will be to show that reading and responding to great literature is not something that specialists do for a grade or to fulfill a requirement, but as a means of better understanding and a vehicle for social discussion.

These responses do not need to be long --1000 words or less—and do not need to take a particular form. An honest, heartfelt response will be as welcome as analysis or critique.

Margaret Atwood is a giant of modern literature who has anticipated, explored, satirized -- and even changed -- the popular preoccupations of our time, say literary experts. The Booker Prize-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, Atwood is the rare writer whose work is adored by the public, acclaimed by the critics, and studied on university campuses around the world. Though her subject matter varies, the precision crafting of her language -- she is also a renowned poet -- gives her body of work a sensibility entirely its own, say critics.

Those interested in participating are encouraged visit the Writing Margaret Atwood website at /home/resource/writing-margaret-atwood or call 574-1362.