Listen in on a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Rudy Wiebe

The following doesn’t really fit on this blog, but I wanted to share it.

Wouldn’t it be great to listen in as Margaret Atwood and Rudy Wiebe—two icons of the Canadian literary world—had a conversation together? 

That’s what happened January 25 when CommonWord bookstore in Winnipeg hosted a launch of a new book about Wiebe titled Rudy Wiebe: Essays On His Works. (By Bianca Lakoseljac, who also facilitated the conversation.) 

For me, the highlight of the launch, which was live on YouTube, was the conversation between Atwood and Wiebe. 

It was as if they completely forgot hundreds of people were listening in as two old friends, who had not seen each other in many years, reminisced about the past. 

Atwood began the conversation by recalling the time in the 1970s when she and Wiebe participated in a fundraising event for the Writer’s Union, which was founded in 1973. 

Called “The All-Star Eclectic Typewriter Revue,” it was an evening of satire and humour. Atwood remembered that Wiebe had brought a serious note to it by singing, in German, with Andreas Schroeder. 

“You sang beautiful Mennonite hymns,” she told Wiebe. 

“We sang Gott is de Liebe,” he said. 

“It was one of the hits of the show,” she replied. “Everyone loved hearing those hymns.” 

Atwood remembered when she came to Edmonton to live in 1968. “You told me to get a haircut,” she said, as they both laughed at the memory. 

“We had wonderful friendship all our lives,” she added. “I can’t believe how long our lives have gone on.” 

Atwood went on to recall a time when Wiebe and his wife, Tena, came to visit them on Pelee Island. Miriam Toews, another Canadian author, was there, too. 

Wiebe and Toews immediately “went into genealogy, “as Mennonites do,” she said, adding “the Mennonite gene pool in Canada is quite shallow.”\

They also recalled the start of the League of Canadian Poets, in the mid-1960s, and how they had got a head start on the authors. 

Atwood noted they were ahead of authors on things like how to know what should be in a book contract, and then joked that she didn’t understand why they needed to know that since poets “weren’t going to make any money, anyway.” 

Wiebe went on to say that they were “very fortunate” to be at the start of when people in Canada began to get “excited about Canadian writing.” 

Added Atwood: “When the 60s began, we were told you can’t be a writer in Canada, you have to go to the States, to England, to France.” But after the Centennial Year, 1967, it became possible to publish novels in Canada. 

Before that, she said, there was “no audience.” 

Wiebe added he was told he “had to go to Toronto to be a writer. I refused to go.” 

Said Atwood: “You were first off the mark when it came to exploring Indigenous history. You were an inspiration to the wave of indigenous writing in the late 1980s.” 

Indigenous people, and the experience of immigrants, were “two subjects I couldn’t ever write enough about,” Wiebe replied. 

They then talked about the impact of artificial intelligence on Canadian writing. 

“At this moment, we’re not in any danger,” Atwood said. “AI is a terrible writer.” 

She went on to say that she had given ChatGPT a prompt to write a story set in Winnipeg written in her voice. 

“It turned out this horrible thing about the weeping willows of Winnipeg,” she said, adding it “scraped my children’s books, put it in with other things.” 

The result was a “dystopia,” with “all these extremely sad people in Winnipeg.” 

She also asked it to write a poem in her voice. “That was even worse,” she said. 

“At my age, I’m not worried about that,” said Wiebe, who is 89. 

“C’mon Rudy, hang in there,” Atwood replied. 

She then asked him what he is writing now. 

“I’m staggered by Parkinson’s,” he replied. “I can’t write very well.” 

Atwood suggested he try a voice writing app. 

“I don’t like machinery,” Wiebe replied. 

“Get someone to dress it up like a tree, won’t even know it’s machinery,” she said with a smile. 

Atwood concluded by saying the chance to talk to Wiebe “was a pleasure for me. “You are actually looking very well.” 

“You are looking very well, too,” Wiebe said. “Blessings to you.” 

You can watch and hear the conversation, and other presentations at the launch, here. (The conversation between Wiebe and Atwood starts about about the 31-minute mark.) 

You can also purchase or borrow the book from CommonWord.