Margaret Atwood sits down with Tom Power on her 80th birthday

On her 80th birthday, the revered author remembers backwoods adventures, royal encounters and the very moment she decided to be a writer. cbc.ca/1.5361066
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[@marielkim639]

This is hands-down the best Margaret Atwood interview I've watched. I loved that the Tom has a similar sense of humour as Margaret Atwood. What a treat, thank you!

[@OsirisMalkovich]

I love that she's still so playful and clever after such a long life. I hope I'm half as coherent and thoughtful at 80.

[@gretchenhickmott8286]

She’s absolutely amazing. People who call her ‘prickly’ do not understand her humor or the fact that women have spicy personalities. Nice to see a wonderful interview from a fun, humble guy who is a genuinely and delightfully engaged human being.

[@greerlovesgovert]

I'm a woman with a spicy personality, but I think there's a big difference between prickly and rude. Atwood always sounds as if she has a chip on her shoulder. This interview was an awkward arm-wrestling match. I stopped paying attention to the content because I found the tension so distracting.

[@jcny11]

I agree. I find her witty and quick. I’ve seen many interviews with her and have never seen her be anything but polite to an interviewer.

[@Sophie-ek5ml]

​@@greerlovesgovert It's one thing to express your personal reaction and another to generalize it into a judgement about the nature of what/who you are reacting to.There isn't bad tension here: it's two people talking without extraneous pleasantries and performative friendliness. I find it refreshing because I am not distracted by forced emotions.

[@charleskristiansson1296]

Canadian English is so beautiful

[@missranjna1899]

And Now she's 81 years old...👌🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏May She live long!😍

[@zenicusspacetravelers]

How to nicely answer toughest questions in media. I am learning from Margaret Atwood by watching her interviews. Great!

[@dhamma58]

I imagine she has been interviewed so many times that a genuine conversation is difficult. Tom managed the prickles with good cheer, so a lovely piece of Q history is made.

[@trashleigh87]

Tom Power is a true unique talent. His work is like ASMR to me, so calming. So charming!

[@dhamma58]

@@trashleigh87 It seems to me that every interviewer is, as you say, unique. And shouldn't be compared as better or worse than others. I value Toms' style and still regard the (pre-disgrace Khomesh) as a master of the form, smart and funny which appealed to me then.

[@trashleigh87]

Fair enough, I'm just paying Tom a compliment!

[@franosbornblaschke3694]

Lovely interview, Tom Powers. John Irving and Margaret Atwood seem so at ease in his company. I felt like they were in my living room.

[@annpratt1148]

I just love her interviews

[@kuribojim3916]

Lovely interview. Warm, friendly, and thoughtful. 👌

[@virginial.franco8450]

Oopsie! ... missed a bid; tho., glad to catch the post!😅

[@RoseAllDay789]

Excellent interview - you two have lovely chemistry. Thank you!

[@tonyking7714]

I like the monkey joke. Threw Margaret off for a second. :D

[@kaygentry2992]

What a great interview! Refreshing!

[@83056]

What a lovely lady.

[@missranjna1899]

She is alive 🙏🙏 Amazing ... Great poet ..padne m bhi mzaa aata h ki jis poet ko hum padd rhe h vo abhi Humsbke sath hai 😁🙏🙏😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍Huge Respect ......

[@moeshickenyay]

Margeret Atwood enjoys camping, at Collingwood’s Jellybean tent and trailer park, conveniently adjacent to Highway 26, near turnabout 114. Rumour is she wrote part of Edible women while using the excellent pool facilities just within walking distance of beautiful Georgian bay.

[@1unalov3g0od9]

That's so cool! I live a few hours from there and have passed it often

[@moeshickenyay]

Me too just outside of Collingwood, the story is a bit exaggerated though. I know she does like being in nature, everything else was a possible fiction.

[@lynda4937]

A part of life 🙌 simply Natural Life

[@elizabethfraser2996]

LOVE YOU mARGARET !

[@jylyhughes5085]

Lovely ....

[@lynda4937]

Alot can change in a decade

[@carrietomiye5821]

Okay good times

[@carrietomiye5821]

Mu favorite is my family and friends

[@carrietomiye5821]

Have a nice night

[@Veeray14]

Anyone know what her button is referencing?

[@timcio77]

Extinction Rebellion. Global environmental movement.

[@lynda4937]

Alot has happened in a Century

[@carrietomiye5821]

I just use my eyes Tom

[@carrietomiye5821]

Grandad made my tree house I brought up my family kids

[@carrietomiye5821]

Extended family I'm for writing and music

[@MCF961]

Margaret, I bought Handmades tail. Thanks.

[@carrietomiye5821]

I'm okay now

[@joantendler6518]

She's obviously very intelligent, but is perhaps depressed. She seems to relish the dark side of life, and Tom tried to make her see some positives, so she didn't like that!

[@mysteryjesus]

Margaret had less than complementary things to say about Bob Dylan. She obviously hasn't spent much time with his stuff.

[@mugwump9131]

This might shock you, but sometimes people just don’t like certain things

[@mysteryjesus]

@@mugwump9131 Well maybe they should start to like them instead of being inappropriately rude. Contempt prior to investigation. Learn the concept and stop doing it.

[@mugwump9131]

Skelet3n O K B O O M E R

[@binkbonk7199]

Or, and this might shock you, different people have different preferences.

[@wanghui562]

This interviewer was beyond rude bordering on the sadistic.

[@sinmore11]

How ironic I've never heard of this old lady that grew up in the woods of Canada. She is 5 years younger than my mother who is aboriginal Canadian that published her first book at 80. Took her that long to write the about the life that was stolen and eraced by whites like this successful woman. What if my grandmother's mother was never dispalced...what if my mother got to be raised in the forest like this lady...has she ever reflected on that detail of _her_ life #IdleNoMore

[@Sophie-ek5ml]

"like". Like what? The colour of her skin? Your assumptions about the lives of others are pompous and weak.

[@sgrannie9938]

🙄

[@virginial.franco8450]

​What kind of realities shared & posted by @sgrannie9938😮?

[@greerlovesgovert]

Christ, she's a prickly old thistle, as warm as her writing. How could anyone be so abrasive with Tom? By the halfway mark, frustrated by the fact that he's parrying instead of acquiescing, she becomes downright rude. I enjoy her lectures, but I don't know why she agrees to be interviewed if she dislikes it this much.

[@jcny11]

I really don’t get why people say she’s prickly. She’s witty and quick, but I’ve never heard her be anything but polite and I’ve seen many of her interviews. And, he is witty as well so I thought they had nice chemistry. He didn’t look uncomfortable at all. What parts did you find prickly?

[@joantendler6518]

She seems to relish the dark side of life, and Tom tried to make her see some positives, so she didn't like that! She's obviously very intelligent, but is perhaps depressed.

[@greerlovesgovert]

Agreed, she definitely leans toward the dark side. I just heard her interviewed by another intelligent and articulate woman, the New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, and she was just as pointlessly contrary with her as she was wirh Tom. Why? How much does it cost someone to occasionally say yes, I see what you mean. I’ve always thought Atwood comes across as deeply embittered by the limited possibilities for intelligent women in her time. I get it, but I still find her unpleasant towards interviewers. I enjoy her lectures, her Massey lecture series on the shadow side of debt was spectacular, but from here on in, I think I'll steer clear of her interviews.

[@dianemitchell1717]

@@greerlovesgovertThere is a difference between being embittered about lack of women’s rights and a deep concern for the future. Btw she had lost her partner, male, of 50 years, recently, which may account for her rather subdued behavior. She was in deep mourning . Read her latest, Old Babes in the Woods, to see how she coped with his passing. She is a lovely, warm hearted intelligent woman with a wonderful wit.

[@mysteryjesus]

Bob Dylan > Margarine Atwood