Writing Women: 10 Authors With Must-Follow Twitter Accounts

Margaret Atwood

How awesome was it to come to Twitter and find out that Margaret Atwood is even cooler and nicer than I had hoped? Preeeetty awesome, let me tell you.

A bunch of years back, we’d tweet to her about The Handmaid’s Tale, and I found out how much that one book personally influenced so many people other than me. The maxim from the book, “nolite te bastardes carborundorum,” (don’t let the bastards get you down) got the young heroine, her predecessor, me and a whole bunch of tweeters through some tough times. Unfortunately, we’ve all had to depend on it a lot more since the election, and the book’s premise has seemed less and less far-fetched. It’s about the end of women’s rights. It’s about a fascist government taking over in the middle of the night, and assigning young ladies as breeding stock to old, white men. Imagine waking up to find your credit cards canceled and your bank accounts closed, just because of your gender. Yikes.

Margaret Atwood never wanted to be a prophet. No one wants to be right about the impending fall of civilization.

Anyhow, Ms. Atwood has many other wonderful books that explore the human condition, and the act of being a woman, through various flavors of fiction (science, speculative, and regular old literature) that you should totally read, too.

She’s also a lot of fun on Twitter, answering questions about science.

Thank you, Margaret, for the heads-up about human-pig hybrids. That was very helpful!