Margaret Atwood on what AI can’t replace

Summary

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Podcast Summary: ReThinking with Adam Grant

Episode: Margaret Atwood on what AI Can’t Replace

Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Adam Grant | Guest: Margaret Atwood

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Overview

In this engaging episode, Adam Grant, organizational psychologist and host of ReThinking, sits down with acclaimed author Margaret Atwood. The conversation centers on what artificial intelligence (AI) can and cannot replicate, the nuances of human creativity, the persistence of originality, and the challenges of memoir writing. Margaret muses on the limitations of AI in literature, shares vivid anecdotes from her memoir, reflects on her early experiences with bullying, and discusses the dynamic between heroes and monsters in both fiction and life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Margaret Atwood’s Perspective on AI and Creativity

• On the Human Soul in Writing
  • “People want to feel they're connecting with another human mind, and if it is AI, they're not connecting with another human mind. They are connecting with an amalgam of other human minds put together. We know not how, but there isn't a... what we used to call a soul behind what you're reading.”
    — Margaret Atwood [03:26]
• AI excels at formulaic or derivative writing (e.g., commercial fiction, student essays), but struggles with original voice and emotional depth.
• “It will never be Shakespeare, although it can probably do a good imitation of Shakespeare now, as we all can.” [05:44]
• Margaret tried AI-generated stories in her own style; the AI failed to capture critical elements of dystopia and emotional resonance, producing absurdly literal or factually ungrounded work.
  • E.g., AI’s dystopian story set in Winnipeg missed the core premise: “In a dystopia, you can't just move out.” [11:08]
  • AI described chiggers as “singing” in a positive poem, misunderstanding their nature. [11:56]
• On Using AI in Writing
  • “Are you mad? Why would I do such a thing?” [13:23]
  • Atwood finds the idea of using AI in her creative process “lazy,” rooted in her strong work ethic.

2. AI Limitations & ‘Hallucinations’

• Margaret disputes the tech industry’s use of “hallucinations” for AI mistakes, insisting they are simple errors, not imaginative acts.
  • “That’s because they want to make AI sound human. So humans have hallucinations, machines don't. They just make mistakes.” [15:50]
• Novels, in her view, depend on the exploration of inner lives—something AI cannot adequately emulate.
  • “It could have somebody called Bob doing something or other, but it probably wouldn't be able to tell you much about Bob's inner life. And that's what novels do, really, better than any other art form.” [15:25]

3. On AI’s Societal Risks

• Most concerned by AI’s ability to produce deepfakes and propaganda, not its threat to literary careers.
• Predicts the main disruption will occur in formulaic writing jobs (e.g., ad copy, basic journalism), not in creative or literary writing.
• Highlights humanity’s enduring desire for authentic personal voices:
  • “I think people are still interested in hearing personal points of view from real people.” [17:04]

4. The Art and Pain of Memoir

• Atwood initially resisted writing a memoir but was drawn to the idea of capturing what one remembers—particularly “stupid things you did, stupid and evil things other people did to you.” [21:12]
• Found the writing process cathartic, even when recalling unpleasant events, likening it to telling “war stories.” [22:01]

5. Enduring Effects of Bullying

• Recounts being tormented by a trio of girls in childhood—a major theme in her novel Cat's Eye, resonating widely with readers.
• Realized power dynamics in bullying are often based on the victim’s belief in the oppressor’s power:
  • “The power of those people is dependent on your believing that they have that power.” [23:32]
• On revenge and forgiveness:
  • Quotes Nelson Mandela’s philosophy of letting go versus the temptation of revenge. [26:24]
  • Admits to “marginally mean things” in adolescence but finds the greater liberation in reclaiming personal power. [27:15]

6. On Enemies and the Hero/Monster Dynamic

• Atwood enjoys the idea of having enemies:
  • “If you didn’t have any, what sort of boring person are you?” [02:39], [29:54]
• Why heroes need monsters:
  • “What would a monster need a hero for? Because it's the hero's quest to slay the monster...to be a hero ... you do have to have a monster to slay.” [28:40]
  • Cautions that being a hero comes at a cost—often in the presence of real monsters. [29:37]

7. Censorship and Banned Books

• Atwood’s “unburnable” copy of The Handmaid's Tale was a statement against censorship, showing that banning fuels interest.
• Research discussed: reading frequently-banned books does not harm teens, and may increase civic engagement and love of reading. [32:13–32:34]
  • “Why do we not give awards to the book banners? Because from what you've told me, their net result is positive.” [32:45]
  • The mere existence of school libraries with engaged librarians correlates with better academic outcomes. [33:09]
• Atwood’s own “forbidden” reading as a child—much of it in secret—broadened her experience and did no harm, though “varicose veins” described in Peyton Place left a lasting impression. [36:13]

8. Writing Advice & Inspirations (Lightning Round) [39:36–41:46]

• Worst advice received:
  • “Why don’t you just forget this writing stuff... find a nice man and marry him?” [39:36]
• Favorite advice to give:
  • “You have to actually do the writing... It’s learning and it’s work.” [40:03]
• Dream dinner guests: Oscar Wilde, Nancy Mitford, possibly Samuel Johnson (“but a very piggy eater”); would not invite Emily Brontë due to her reported taciturnity. [40:34], [41:46]

9. Change, Rethinking, and Adaptability

• Atwood is continually reassessing politics and leadership (with reference to the Trump era), noting the difference between deliberate destabilization and simple unpredictability in leadership. [42:13]
• Discusses the spectrum of human goodness and badness:
  • “So the very good, the very bad, and then degrees of goodness and badness leading up to the center where most of us live.” [46:06]

10. Humor, Wit & Memorable Moments

• Memorable quips about enemies presumed dead, revenge, and why her books feature so many eggs or glass jars. [29:54], [48:02]
• Her response to a student advisor’s condescending advice: “Well, I just thought he was an idiot.” [39:58]
• Adam calling her “delightfully disagreeable” and uncancellable:
  • Atwood: “Not at my age. ... I’m not likely to say any career destroying thing and nobody can fire me.” [43:46], [44:01]
• On aging as a writer: “Writers don’t retire, they only get worse.” (with a wink); hopes to delay that as long as possible. [44:37]
• Classic Atwood humor: when asked about her hair, “If I got it done, would I do this?” [48:52]

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “There isn’t a...what we used to call a soul behind what you’re reading. But it’s probably quite good at company reports, because those don’t have souls.”
  — Margaret Atwood [03:26]
• “Are you mad? Why would I do such a thing?” — On using AI for writing [13:23]
• “A hallucination has got much more to it than just factual inaccuracy. I don’t think that’s what a novelist does at all.” [15:06]
• “The power of those people is dependent on your believing that they have that power.” [23:32]
• “What would a monster need a hero for? Because it’s the hero’s quest to slay the monster. … To be a hero ... you do have to have a monster to slay.” [28:40]
• “If you didn’t have any (enemies), what sort of boring person are you?” [02:39]
• “Why do we not give awards to the book banners? Because from what you’ve told me, their net result is positive.” [32:45]
• “You have to actually do the writing. ... It’s a learning and it’s work.” [40:03]
• “Not at my age… I’m not likely to say any career destroying thing and nobody can fire me.” [43:46]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:26] — On the human soul in writing versus AI
• [05:44] — Originality and AI imitation
• [11:08] — AI misses core elements of genre
• [13:23] — Why Atwood will never write with AI
• [15:50] — “Hallucinations” vs. “errors” in AI
• [17:04] — AI’s impact on writers and creativity
• [21:12] — Decision to write a memoir
• [23:32] — Power dynamics in bullying
• [28:40] — Heroes, monsters, and the need for antagonists
• [32:45] — Research on bans and book censorship
• [39:36] — Worst and best writing advice
• [43:46] — Atwood on disagreeing, aging, and being uncancellable

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Summary

This episode is a masterclass in sharp humor and creative insight from Margaret Atwood, guided by Adam Grant’s probing curiosity. The lasting message: while AI can mimic style and shuffle words, it cannot replace the intangible human depth, emotional intelligence, and individual perspective that define great art and authentic connection. Atwood’s reflections span writing, technological change, human resilience, the peculiarities of public life, and the pleasures and perils of looking backward. The episode is as thought-provoking and wryly funny as its celebrated guest, delivering both wisdom and a reminder to embrace our inimitable humanity.

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Transcript

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[Margaret Atwood]

How.

[Adam Grant]

Do you feel about having enemies?

[Margaret Atwood]

I Think it's a part of life. And anyway, if you didn't have any, what sort of boring person are you?

[Adam Grant]

Hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Margaret Atwood is the author best known for the Handmaid's Tale. She's won a slew of awards for her novels, poetry collections, nonfiction, and children's books. And now, for the first time in 86 years, she's written a memoir, the Book of Lives. It's one of her first books published in the era of AI, which she has quite a few thoughts about.

[Margaret Atwood]

People want to feel they're connecting with another human mind, and if it is AI, they're not connecting with another human mind. They are connecting with an amalgam of other human minds put together. We know not how, but there isn't a. What we used to call a soul behind what you're reading. But it's probably quite good at company reports, because those don't have souls. I'm just sharing this with you.

[Adam Grant]

I first got the chance to speak with Margaret a few years ago about procrastination. She likened it to going swimming in a very cold lake and said, if you're gonna do it, you gotta just run in screaming. Today we talked about what convinced her to jump into the very cold lake of writing a memoir and about creativity, AI and what to do about your enemies. Margaret, it's lovely to see you again. Are those all your books behind you?

[Margaret Atwood]

They're all my books, but not all the editions of all my books.

[Adam Grant]

Wow. So I have so many things I want to ask you about, but I think maybe the place that I would love to start this conversation is around AI. You, as far as I'm concerned, have been the most interesting voice on AI and creativity. And as I understand it, you've written dozens of books that AI companies have ingested to train their large language models.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

But you're not worried that AI is going to outright us?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, it's quite bad so far, but it depends what you're writing. So if you want to write the equivalent of George Orwell's 1994 romantic schlock for mass consumers, it can probably do that because there's a formula and it likes formulas. So right now, you know, it data scrapes and sticks things together, and you can't actually get anything out of It. Unless something about that has been put into it. So it is what they used to say, garbage in, garbage out. But not everything that it's scraping is garbage. So I think you could probably get some moderately competent things out of it, including a lot of student essays, which has transformed educational methods already. The write it home essay is gone. But when it comes to original voice quality writing, I think it probably cannot do that, because it can't, so far, write original writing. It will never be Shakespeare, although it can probably do a good imitation of Shakespeare now, as we all can.

[Adam Grant]

I'm reminded of a brilliant Atlantic piece that you wrote where you mentioned that you used to write in the style of different famous authors when you were younger.

[Margaret Atwood]

Absolutely. It's good training.

[Adam Grant]

Tell me about that.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, it's just something we did as part of being graduate students in the early 60s. We used to have to identify passages and guess what century they were from. And then if you had really read a lot of books with very small print, you might be able to guess who the author was. So identifying authors by their style and period. And we did another thing later on when I was teaching, in which I assigned them a whole bunch of passages and got them to try to guess whether the writer was male or female. And they were quite bad at that. And it became clear that you can identify a writer's century and roughly their period even within that century. So late 19th century isn't the same as mid 19th century. But it was hard to guess gender, and you couldn't even do it through the concerns in the book. So you might think that women were writing more about women and men were writing more about men. That's not true or not in the 19th century. So I give you Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, you know, by men, et cetera, who used to hide under the kitchen table when their mothers were gossiping with their friends. But women, on the other hand, were not allowed into men's clubs, so they didn't really know what they were talking about in there. But on the other hand, that was probably unprintable in the 19th century. Anyway. Anyway, it's an interesting exercise, and we used to do it quite a lot.

[Adam Grant]

So go back to then. The writing and the voice of different authors. Can you still do it?

[Margaret Atwood]

If you read the introduction to my new memoir, you will see what I came up with. When they said they wanted a memoir in a literary style, and I said, whatever would that be like? His style? Do we want heroic couplets like Pope? What do we want here? I could read Them to you. Oh, got the intro. There it is. So this is the subject of pastiche and writing in the style of other. So they say, when the idea of writing a quote's literary memoir first sprang up. From whom? Memory shrugs. But it was someone in publishing, I replied to her or him or them. That would be tedious. You've heard the bad joke about the old east coast fisherman counting fish. One fish, two fish, another fish, another fish, another fish. So my literary memoir would go, I wrote a book, I wrote a second book. I wrote another book. I wrote another book. Dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper? Oh, that's not what we meant. They said. We meant a memoir in, you know, a literary style. This was even more baffling. What would that be like 18th century mock heroic couplets? Lo, when Dawn's rosy fingers did the curtains part down, sit I at my desk to labor at mine. Art or something more in the gothic flamboyant style of, for instance, Poe. A thousand brightly hued images whirled within my dizzied brain and menacing phantoms thronged the shadowy corners of my tapestried chamber. In a frenzy, I seized my enchanted quill and, ignoring the large blot of ink now taking demonic shape on the dazzling shade of snowy parchment before me, I know it would not do.

[Adam Grant]

I love this. I could listen to you write in other people's voices all day, but, oh, could you? I prefer when you write on your own, I have to say. So I'm curious about how that exercise, when you do it, Margaret, is different from what AI does.

[Margaret Atwood]

Probably not that different, except it seems there's quite a few things it doesn't yet. No. So it could do probably fairly short ripoffs of other authors, but it couldn't then go anywhere. Very original with that, I don't think. We did propose a couple of tests to it earlier on. I'm sure it's better now. But the Walrus magazine in Canada proposed to it that it should write a dystopian short story set in Winnipeg in the style of Margaret Atwood. So what it came up with was something called the Weeping Willows of Winnipeg, but it did not grasp the essential thing about a dystopia, which is, in a dystopia, you can't just move out. So it didn't put any wall around Winnipeg where all these unhappy people were. And it didn't also tell us what exactly was making them so unhappy, except that it seemed to rain and snow a lot. But that's not a dystopia. Dystopias have to be made by people. So we didn't have any sort of evil genius, Big brother type of person. We just had some unhappy people in Winnipeg. You know, they just could have moved. So a few essentials were not grasped. And we also asked it to write a poem about our Pelee Island Bird Observatory, where the bird banding does take place in a fairly swampy area. And we asked it to include chiggers and mud. But to write a positive thing about this, we had luxuriant, nourishing mud and we had singing chiggers. So the AI evidently didn't know what a chigger was. They don't sing, they just make your life hell.

[Adam Grant]

Well, a couple of things. One, it's just. It's fun to see these examples. Two, it's delightful to see you proving what AI can't do.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, it could possibly later with few twitches. So, for instance, we asked it to give us a picture of our earlier residents for our bird banders, which had snakes in the shower. So we asked it to include some holes in the floor, which there were, and some snakes, which there also were. And it showed us something that looked like the floor had been hit by a bomb, and underneath it were these gigantic, huge boa constrictors. So you have to be very specific with it. You have to say, make the snake smaller, make realistic snakes for southern Ontario, and make. You know, by hole in the floor, we don't mean no floor.

[Adam Grant]

Have you been using AI in your writing at all?

[Margaret Atwood]

Are you mad? Why would I do such a thing?

[Adam Grant]

I assumed it was going to be an emphatic no, but I had to confirm.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes. Well, it's confirmed. No, I would never do that.

[Adam Grant]

Why not?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, it's lazy. I'm of the workaholic generation, not the hippies.

[Adam Grant]

There's a fellow recovering workaholic. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the. I would never write a word with AI philosophy.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, thank you for reassuring us about that.

[Adam Grant]

But what I will say is I've found it useful for writing adjacent tasks. Sometimes it's a more efficient thesaurus, for example.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. It can tell you various word definitions and refer you to this and that dictionary. And I'm told it's reasonably good at travel schedules, though guess what? Its mapping abilities are not very good. We asked it to tell us the exact location of a supermarket at Christie and Dupont in Toronto, and it said that that store was in the Maple Leaf Gardens, which is the old hockey stadium down by the waterfront. Now, wherever did it get that idea? I don't know, so I wouldn't trust it.

[Adam Grant]

I wonder if those hallucinations that you're describing, though, are dead ends or if they might be paths to new perspectives.

[Margaret Atwood]

Just a minute. Now, the hallucinations are hallucinations that AI Is having, potentially.

[Adam Grant]

Right. So when it gives you wrong information and it's misbelieving things or it's misrepresenting facts, that seems like a version of what a novelist does.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, first of all, I wouldn't call those hallucinations. I would just call them errors.

[Adam Grant]

Touche.

[Margaret Atwood]

So, to me, a hallucination has got much more to it than just factual inaccuracy. I don't think that's what a novelist does at all. Novelists tell stories with characters and plots. So that's the part so far where I think it's rather falling down. So I think it could have somebody called Bob doing something or other, but it probably wouldn't be able to tell you much about Bob's inner life. And that's what novels do, really, better than any other art form.

[Adam Grant]

I'm just thinking about your statement that a hallucination is different from an error. It's striking because the AI community has referred to these kinds of mistakes as hallucinations.

[Margaret Atwood]

That's because they want to make AI sound human. So humans have hallucinations, machines don't. They just make mistakes.

[Adam Grant]

What's the difference? Just thinking a hallucination is an emotional experience? Is that the fundamental difference?

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. So I was eating breakfast. It's not necessarily a hallucination.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so what's different for you between a hallucination and an error?

[Margaret Atwood]

What makes you think I have hallucinations? I said I wasn't a hippie, right? Yeah. I think you have hallucinations when you're very ill or else on drugs.

[Adam Grant]

Not something a machine can experience in either case.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, I wouldn't think so.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so I'm just thinking about your point of view on AI As a writer.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. I don't think that's the most important thing about it. I think the most important thing about it is its ability to create deep fakes for political propaganda purposes. I don't think writers are going to use AI Much, because why would they be writers if they could write their own writing? If they can't write their own writing, why are they pretending to be writers?

[Adam Grant]

I'm curious about what that means for the future of creative careers. In your view. It sounds like you don't think writers should be worried.

[Margaret Atwood]

It depends what kinds of writers we're talking about. If you mean writers of ad copies, I think they should be worried if people are still even writing ad copy and not just making pictures. Ads used to be very verbal and now it is really billboards a lot without many words on them at all. So those kinds of writers have already been expelled from their ad copy jobs. Or if you're thinking of newspaper writers, people writing stuff up, I think they might be worried. But you know, I think people are still interested in hearing personal points of view from real people. You could of course invent a person who was the purported writer. I think the Nancy Drew books were written that way. But not by AI, by ghostwriters. And there have of course been a lot of ghostwriters and they are channeling the they hope the voice and the thoughts of the person they're writing the book for. But they're not AI.

[Adam Grant]

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[Margaret Atwood]

So was I.

[Adam Grant]

You don't normally write about your own life.

[Margaret Atwood]

I don't?

[Adam Grant]

Why? Where did this come from?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, I don't know. You know, they said, why don't you write a memoir? No, no, no, no. I never want to do that. Oh come on. But then I realized that a memoir is not the same as an autobiography. I wouldn't have to go through all my old travel schedules and say where I'd been when I could put into it what a memoir really should be. Which is what you can remember. Surely that is why it is called a memoir. So what you remember is usually stupid things you did, stupid and evil things other people did to you. Not so much the evil things you did to other people. You tend to forget those. And catastrophes, near death experiences and high points.

[Adam Grant]

So as you reflected on your memories and decided what you wanted to include, what surprised you?

[Margaret Atwood]

What surprised me? I think it was pleasurable to write about a lot of these things, even though they were not enjoyable at the time. So it is a bit like war stories. You almost died, but hey, you didn't. And now it's a story.

[Adam Grant]

One of the stories that really stands out in the Book of Lives is the, I think what a trio of nine year old girls who tormented you in school.

[Margaret Atwood]

They did. Yes. That got a lot of reaction when I put it into a novel. Cat's Eye anyway struck a chord with that. Yes. Universal experience, it seems.

[Adam Grant]

Very much so. It makes me wonder how did that dynamic play out? And how did the Tables turn later.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, in real life or in the novel?

[Adam Grant]

In real life.

[Margaret Atwood]

Okay, so Alice in Wonderland has been an inspiration to many. And I think it's the moment when the Queen of Hearts has been threatening to behead everybody. Ella says you're nothing but a pack of cards. And at this point the cards all flutter through the air and she wakes up. So I think it's the moment when you can say you're nothing but a pack of cards and walk away. If you're in a situation where that is possible, you're not always, but if you are, you realize that the power of those people is dependent on your believing that they have that power.

[Adam Grant]

For listeners who haven't had a chance to read yet, what was the worst of the torment?

[Margaret Atwood]

I think that's a very personal question. How can I choose amongst the torments?

[Adam Grant]

You can choose at random if you like.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah, I don't know. See, remember that I had not known any little girls before this period in my life. I grew up with basically boys. So my older brother was a boy, my dad was a boy and my mother was a tomboy. So I didn't have any models of frilly behavior. I was the most girly person in my family, believe it or not. So I didn't have, you know, I didn't know the. The etiquette of girls much at all. So I also tended to believe what people told me because I hadn't had a lot of role models of lying. So I actually believed what these people were telling me anyway. You can read Cat's Eye and have revel in torments if. If you wish. But I have to say that some of the letters that I got from readers after publishing this book had much worse torments in them. To the extent that you wondered why these people were still alive.

[Adam Grant]

Have those letters changed the way that you reflect on having been bullied?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, they simply underlined the fact that this is a pretty universal experience amongst kids and that it is inaccurate to say that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and little boys are made of snaps and snails and puppy dogs tails.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah, I think we can retire that refrain for sure.

[Margaret Atwood]

And it's not anti feminist to say so. It is simply underlining the fact that human beings are human and they come in all shapes and sizes and do all kinds of things. So if you stop believing that they are supernatural and all empowered, then you can either walk away or if they are at that point, the dragon, you can find the weak spot and shoot your hobbit. Yarrow into a. Is it the armpit? I think it's the armpit, the weak spot.

[Adam Grant]

This reminds me of something I find myself saying often as a psychologist. When someone is hurt or upset by someone else's behavior, I just want to ask them, why are you giving that person power over your emotions?

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, yes. Or the popular saying these days are, why are you letting them live rent free in your head? Yeah, I'm sure you've seen that one quite a bit.

[Adam Grant]

Oh, yes. Do you have any lessons learned about how to charge them rent or remove them from your head?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, you're probably asking the wrong person. Yes, I ought to say something about compassion and forgiveness and things like that. And those can be helpful because the moment at which you let them off the hook, they're no longer in your head as this vengeful presence. And I think it was Nelson Mandela who had decided to just let it go as he was being let out of prison. You know, he could go for revenge, or he could just let that go. So that's one approach. The other one is to get them back, which is very tempting, you know, it's very tempting. I try not to indulge. I try to be a good and virtuous person. I don't always succeed.

[Adam Grant]

You must have, though, had a triumphant moment of revenge at some point in this saga.

[Margaret Atwood]

Not a single triumphant moment of revenge. I would just say, as a teenager, the realization that the power was no longer residing in this other person, it was residing in me. And I didn't do terribly mean things, but I did marginally mean things. Such as, let's walk home through the cemetery, Adam. Of course, I'm not really alive. And I will show you the mausoleum where I spend the morning hours. No, no, no. That's too scary. No, come on. I won't hurt you, will I?

[Adam Grant]

Oh, I do not want to ever end up on your bad side, Margaret. Ever.

[Margaret Atwood]

That's a wise choice, Adam.

[Adam Grant]

You know, this reminds me of, I think, the first time I laughed out loud as I was starting to read. You quoted Julian Porter, who said, don't piss her off or you will live forever.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes, you did say that. Yes. I put it in my epigraphs. And he was very pleased to be in the epigraphs.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah. I think one of the more evocative lines in the book was, you realize that while heroes need the monster, the monster does not need the hero.

[Margaret Atwood]

Absolutely not.

[Adam Grant]

Talk to me about that.

[Margaret Atwood]

I was not the first person to say that. I think people will remember having heard that before. But what would a monster need a hero for? Because it's the hero's quest to slay the monster. So unless you're very, very masochistic dragon, you do not welcome the advent of the dragon slayer. But in order to be a hero, in order to be the monster slayer and everybody saying, hooray for you, you do have to have a monster to slay. Or put another way around, I knew some people who'd been in resistance movements during World War II. 2. And one of them who had been in the Polish resistance said, pray that you will never have the opportunity to be a hero, because those opportunities always involve monsters.

[Adam Grant]

Wow.

[Margaret Atwood]

And quite. Usually the monster slays quite a few Beowulfs before the actual Beowulf gets there.

[Adam Grant]

That's powerful. So you've made the case that the hero needs the monster. And it makes me wonder, do you have enemies now?

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, so many. But lots of them are dead, Adam.

[Adam Grant]

Hopefully not by your own doing.

[Margaret Atwood]

Not directly.

[Adam Grant]

I'm starting to picture just behind you your enemies list.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, I don't have a list. No, not as such, particularly. And I think the list she would be interested in more would be the lists in which I feature as an enemy.

[Adam Grant]

Do tell.

[Margaret Atwood]

So when you say, do you have enemies? And I said so many, I was referring to the fact that a lot of people probably think I'm an enemy of theirs in some way, either for taking political stands or taking some other kind of stand or for being short. Why aren't you taller? No, scrap that. That was frivolous. So reasons like that. And if you're associated, for instance, with an organization like Penn International, which is stand up for the rights of people who've been imprisoned or indeed exiled or tortured or killed for what they've written, you're going to have some enemies.

[Adam Grant]

Okay. This is a good segue to book bans. I loved when you had an unburnable copy of the Handmaid's Tale created and then torched it.

[Margaret Atwood]

I did. And I made everybody in the room very nervous. They were saying, just point it at the book, Margaret. Just the book. And then they said, you can give that flamethrower back to us now.

[Adam Grant]

It's one of the best videos on the Internet.

[Margaret Atwood]

You think?

[Adam Grant]

I do. And to set up the question, the best evidence that I've found shows a couple of things. Number one, when books are banned, that completely fails to reduce reader interest in them and sometimes draws attention. And number two, that kids are not nearly as fragile as some parents fear. There was a study that came out about a decade ago. Looking at teenagers in Texas and just tracking how much exposure they had to frequently banned books. So Huck Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Kite Runner, Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, perhaps even a Margaret Atwood selection.

[Margaret Atwood]

What is this perhaps?

[Adam Grant]

Definitely. Definitely on the list. Even if not in this study, it turns out that how much exposure you've had to those books has no bearing on your grades, no bearing on illicit behavior, and actually predicts spending more time reading for fun and higher involvement in volunteering, charity, and civic behavior.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, why are we not surprised? And why do we not give awards to the book banners? Because from what you've told me, their net result is positive.

[Adam Grant]

It may well be. I don't know if it's causal, but it's at least correlational.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. So the other thing that's correlational is the existence of school libraries. So if there is a school library with a librarian who helps kids find stuff they're interested in, their marks go up. So why would you do away with those unless you wish people to be stupid?

[Adam Grant]

I love the way you framed that. Now, I should say, in this last study, there were 283 students, and 19 of them showed both high levels of engagement with banned books and also some mental health symptoms. And my interpretation of that is there's a small subset of students with mental health challenges who seek out this kind of literature. Not that engaging with this literature causes mental health symptoms, but you've produced some of this literature, so I'd love to hear your take.

[Margaret Atwood]

Our literary festival in Toronto was founded by a guy who was told at school, don't you ever, ever read Ulysses by James Joyce? It's an evil, evil, evil book. And your soul will be irrevocably damned. So he rushed out and got one and started reading it, looking for the soul. Damning, dirty parts and really liked it. So he thought, if this is literature, I would like to know more about that. And that's what turned him into a reader. So I'll go from that story to me being absolutely traumatized by reading Peyton Place on top of the garage roof where nobody could see me doing it. And what was the traumatizing part? Varicose veins. I didn't know they're varicose veins. Ick. Yes. So you never know what people are going to find alarming or what is unknown to them. And that's one of the reasons for reading. You discover all sorts of interesting things like varicose veins in these forbidden Books. But we had three kinds of books, those we studied in school. A pretty Victorian curriculum, not lots of sex in it, except off the page in the shrubbery where you couldn't really figure out what was going on. Books your parents might have, which were in my case, a wide variety, including science books and history books and historical romances. I liked those. And a lot of detective stories and science fiction. My dad liked science fiction. He used to get a big laugh out of it. Oh, he was a scientist, so. Ha ha, he would say quite a year. And then the really things you weren't not supposed to read, which you usually got hold of either in the drugstore with absolutely trashy covers on them. But it would be like War and Peace, you know, woman in a negligee, cleavage, 1984 woman in a tight fitting uniform, cleavage. There was a lot of cleavage. And you would end up reading world classics because you thought you were getting some kind of forbidden book. And ones that you read at houses where you were babysitting. Those were the best.

[Adam Grant]

And you're saying your life was not ruined by any of these memories at all? Although it sounds like you've really. You haven't been able to remove the image of varicose veins from your mind.

[Margaret Atwood]

Absolutely not. No, no. Seared into my brain.

[Adam Grant]

Otherwise, I think you survived the experience.

[Margaret Atwood]

I seem to have done anyway. It gave me a wide range of reading references and was on the whole pretty educational. Especially since I was a flashlight under the covers reader and a procrastinator. So instead of. Instead of doing my homework, I would be reading one of those Dell mysteries that had the keyhole with the eyeball in it.

[Adam Grant]

I feel like that choice of how you spent your time has worked out okay for you.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah, but it could have been otherwise, you know, I could have been a mere wastrel and dilettante. I mean a mere only. Shall I say wastrel and diletron.

[Adam Grant]

Highly doubtful.

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[Adam Grant]

Com tedaudio this podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With WISE, you can send, spend and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps and save up to 55% compared to major banks. Plus, wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallarta or sending Euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be Smart Join the 15 million customers who choose WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com Learn more by visiting WISE.com US Compare T's and C's Apply. All right, it's time for a lightning round. What is the worst writing advice you hear?

[Margaret Atwood]

I think the worst writing advice I was given was by somebody who was supposed to be my student advisor in my final year of undergraduate who said, why don't you just forget this writing stuff and going to graduate school and find a nice man and marry him? Well, I just thought he was an idiot.

[Adam Grant]

He was an idiot. What's your favorite writing tip to give?

[Margaret Atwood]

You have to actually do the writing. You have to set the words down, you need to make the hours and you need to actually do is one of those things that you like playing the piano. You don't sit down at the piano and expect to rip off a sonata and without ever learning how to play. So it's a learning and it's work.

[Adam Grant]

If you were hosting a dream dinner party, who would you invite? Dead or alive?

[Margaret Atwood]

Dead or alive? I would invite the best conversationalists so people who are known to be people of few words I would not invite, even though they might be quite interesting if you could ever get them to say anything. So I might invite Emily Bronte, but she wouldn't come.

[Adam Grant]

Why are you prejudging Emily Bronte?

[Margaret Atwood]

I'm not prejudging her. I'm judging her. I've read the descriptions of what she was like. She'd probably say, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than waste my time in your dining room rather than running across the moors. Yes, I wouldn't invite her, but I might invite. Would I invite Samuel Johnson? He was said to be a great conversationalist, but a very piggy eater. So would you be inviting people for their table manners or their conversation? I would definitely invite Oscar Wilde. He would be very good as a dinner guest. And Nancy Mitford would be very good. So we could go on dividing people into talkers and silent people and narrow the list down from there.

[Adam Grant]

That's a great group. I feel like Samuel Johnson would ace the game you introduced me to at the beginning of the conversation around redefining words.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes, he'd be very good at that. But he might put the other guest off.

[Adam Grant]

Might be a know it all.

[Margaret Atwood]

No, he might be a piggy eater.

[Adam Grant]

So, Margaret, what is something you've changed your mind about or rethought lately?

[Margaret Atwood]

I'm changing my mind fairly frequently about what the Trump regime is liable to do next. And of course, that is their aim. Either that or somebody has really lost their mind. So are they intending to be deliberately destabilizing, or are they just erratic, or they throw it out there, See who salutes. If it's not working, cancel it. What is going on? I don't know.

[Adam Grant]

A friend of mine photographed Trump for Time magazine and asked him how he deals with all the chaos, and he just said, it seems like there's always a storm surrounding you. And Trump stared him in the eye and said, I am the storm.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, that was pretty witty.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah.

[Margaret Atwood]

How long ago was that?

[Adam Grant]

This was a decade ago now.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Okay.

[Adam Grant]

Somebody asked me before this conversation, what is Margaret Atwood like? And I was thinking about the first time we spoke, and I said, she's entirely original. I've never met anyone like her, and she's delightfully disagreeable.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, well, I'll think about that.

[Adam Grant]

What I found so charming about the way that you engage with people is you are utterly fearless about saying something that might be unpopular or challenge conventional wisdom or maybe lead people to question their own assumptions and it seems like you don't worry too much about what other people think of you.

[Margaret Atwood]

Not at my age. It's not that I didn't used to in some circumstances, but let's put it this way. I'm not likely to say any career destroying thing and nobody can fire me.

[Adam Grant]

You're uncancellable.

[Margaret Atwood]

More or less in the usual sense. I think I might do something that would be really bad. For instance, if I wrote a really terrible book and it somehow got past my editors. That would be bad because people would no longer trust that when they opened the book, they might get an experience they might enjoy. They would think, oh, well, she's passed it.

[Adam Grant]

Well, that goes to something you said a few years ago, and I quote, writers don't retire, they only get worse.

[Margaret Atwood]

I know that was bad of me.

[Adam Grant]

But you haven't. You haven't gotten worse. How?

[Margaret Atwood]

Not yet, but I will. How have I managed not to get worse? Yes, I think that's probably a question for your department.

[Adam Grant]

A colleague of mine was asked, why did you become a professor? And he said, having students keeps you young.

[Margaret Atwood]

Some people would say the opposite ages you prematurely.

[Adam Grant]

I suppose it depends on the students and also the kinds of relationships you build with them. Yes, Margaret, what's the question you have for me as a psychologist?

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, boy. Psychologist or psychiatrist?

[Adam Grant]

Definitely a psychologist.

[Margaret Atwood]

Okay. Well, I did know a forensic psychiatrist who said to me at one point, if you knew it was walking around on the street out there, he'd never go out. So my question to you is, what do you think of that?

[Adam Grant]

That's a great question. I think I see where that that observation is coming from. But it's also, I think, a biased sample of some of the worst of humanity.

[Margaret Atwood]

That's true. So you could also give a sample of people being helpful.

[Adam Grant]

I think we know from good evidence that the default human response to tragedy and suffering is kindness and care.

[Margaret Atwood]

That's one of the default responses.

[Adam Grant]

Not the only one.

[Margaret Atwood]

One of it is not the only one. So some people take advantage of chaos and tragedy to go in and nick the silverware and do things that normal civil society would not permit. So there's that side, too, and that's us as human beings. So the very good, the very bad, and then degrees of goodness and badness leading up to the center where most of us live.

[Adam Grant]

I think that's really well articulated. And I think humanity certainly is capable of both extremes. Without a doubt, most of us do hover in the center so far.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. Most of us also have different Definitions of good and evil. So is it really bad? And this is one of the questions that Ann Landers, the newspaper column got most often. Is it really bad to put the toilet paper on with the sheet coming out the bottom?

[Adam Grant]

How dare you?

[Margaret Atwood]

How dare you.

[Adam Grant]

Morally wrong.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. The other one is you're dead to me with tea. Milk in first or milk after you put in the tea? Great arguments about that.

[Adam Grant]

Oh, my version of that is you have to put the cereal in before you pour the milk.

[Margaret Atwood]

Who would do it the other way around?

[Adam Grant]

My brother in law. He's a barbarian. Couldn't believe it when I watched him put the milk in and then pour cereal on top. What are you doing?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, at least you'd know how much milk you'd put in. Whereas if the cereal's in first, the milk can sort of get lost amongst all those cereal pieces, which is why.

[Adam Grant]

My cereal bowl overflows sometimes. Point taken. You've made me rethink that. Okay, Margaret, as we close, you are about to head out on book tour, as I understand.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

What are you hoping people will ask or not ask?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, of the many questions that I've been asked over the years, I've probably answered most of them by now. In the very early days, I would go to places where they had never had a writer before, and they would ask very direct questions that had nothing to do with your symbolic meaning. And one of my favorites, why are there so many eggs in your books? I had to think about that. Why are there so many eggs in my books? Why are there so many glass jars in your books? Ooh, you've counted them. But my best one was, is your hair really like that or do you get it done? So that's a pretty non writer's school type of question.

[Adam Grant]

And the answer is, the answer is.

[Margaret Atwood]

If I got it done, would I do this?

[Adam Grant]

Shades of Abraham Lincoln. If I had another face, would I wear this one?

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah, exactly. There you go.

[Adam Grant]

That's very good. Well, Margaret, thank you for taking the time to do this. This has been such a joy. And having grown up in Michigan and been called an honorary Canadian, I would like to call you a national treasure. But I suppose it would be more accurate to call you an international treasure.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, that's very kind.

[Adam Grant]

Thank you for sharing your wit and wisdom. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Graham. The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standards. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hylash, Ban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Layton Brown.

[Margaret Atwood]

When were you born? Do you mind my asking?

[Adam Grant]

I was born in 1981.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh well, you missed it all, didn't you?

[Adam Grant]

Oh well, I've heard stories and read books.

[Margaret Atwood]

You can read about it.

[Capital One Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping using self reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks. It doesn't just help buyers find a car they love, it helps schedule a test drive, get pre approved for financing and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

[Adam Grant]

Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's podcast Work Life and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use the ServiceNow AI platform, while other platforms duct tape tools together. ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data workflows and AI connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for [e-mail] AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com that's R u b r-I k.com par le tu francais hablas espanol Parliament if you've used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com acast spelled B A B B E L.com acast rules and restrictions may apply.