It’s the 80th birthday of Margaret Atwood (b. 1939), Canada’s most celebrated author and one of the most revered living authors on the planet. (I checked.) Atwood has written poetry, short stories, critical studies, children’s books, screenplays, and probably more than a few brilliant grocery lists but is best known for her novels, particularly The Handmaid’s Tale (1985).

Atwood was born in Ottawa and raised in Toronto and the bush country in northern Quebec, where her father did research as a forest entomologist. (Atwood drew heavily on this experience in her 1988 novel Cat’s Eye, which explored the chilling theme of bullying among young girls.) Atwood studied at the University of Toronto and got an MA in English lit from Radcliffe (1962) and has probably herself been the subject of about a zillion theses and dissertations since.

Atwood’s first collection of poetry, Double Persephone (1961), won the E.J. Pratt Medal, and her next, The Circle Game (1964), won the Governor General’s Award. She began publishing novels in 1969 with The Edible Woman, the story of a woman who cannot eat and feels she is being eaten. Then came Surfacing (1973), described on Goodreads as “part detective novel, part psychological thriller,” about a woman searching for her missing father. Atwood has written 16 novels to date, including Alias Grace (1996), based on the true story of a 19th century servant convicted of two murders; The Blind Assassin (2000), which won the Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake (2003); and most recently, Hag-Seed (2016), which retells Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Atwood also published her first graphic novel, Angel Catbird Vol. 1, in 2016, with artist Johnnie Christmas and color artist Tamra Bonvillain.

(Wondering if I too could be a “color artist” for a graphic novel… I did a coloring project with a bunch of little kids over the weekend, and not to brag but I am way better at staying in the lines. True story.)

The Handmaid’s Tale was made into a TV series on Hulu in 2017 by Bruce Miller and has gone beyond the scope of the book. Atwood published a sequel herself entitled The Testaments in September of this year; she consulted closely with Miller during the writing of it to avoid inconsistencies. The Testaments was nominated for the Booker Prize before it was even published (I don’t know how you pull that off), and then won.

Embarrassing fact: I once sat at a brunch with Margaret Atwood in which we peons were invited to ask questions. I screwed up my courage and asked a question, possibly about The Blind Assassin, and it was an uninteresting enough question that Atwood answered very curtly, thus confirming my suspicion that I am barely smart enough to sit in a room with Atwood, let alone converse with her. I am just grateful I wasn’t escorted summarily away.

Have a mildly acceptable Monday, read Alias Grace if you haven’t, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.