By
Tobi Kozakewich
Having accidentally
been invited to a small dinner party last month with Margaret Atwood,
the last thing in the world I expected to discuss was my shoes.
As a PhD student at University of Ottawa in English Literature and
as symposium coordinator for the first Ottawa U Margaret Atwood
Symposium, I was expecting dinner banter to be entirely focused
on literary topics.
The busyness of the days leading up to dinner meant that I didn’t
have much time to think about or prepare myself for such intimacy
with a literary icon. Luckily it wasn’t my first encounter
with a professional writer. In the fall, while in New York, I attended
a cocktail party at Norman Mailer’s Brooklyn flat; and one
of my closest friends has become a Canadian novelist of some acclaim.
Still, Atwood commands a unique prominence in Canadian letters,
so I must confess I was both nervous and thrilled as I stood in
the lobby of the Chateau Laurier, waiting for her to come down from
her hotel room.
She took me completely by surprise. She was blonde.
Naturally, I was expecting the dark, curly hair to which we’ve
all grown accustomed. I was also anticipating her to be taller than
she was.
Laura Moss, one of the other dinner guests, reflected afterwards
on the number of female Canadian writers who are “small and
bird-like.” I can see her point.
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