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A precocious and creative child

Broadcast Date: Nov. 4, 1975

Margaret Atwood's creative flair was evident at an early age. Atwood tells CBC's Judy LaMarsh that she began writing at age five but put it aside to pursue painting, opera and even puppetry. Atwood had a happy if somewhat unorthodox childhood. She spent much of it in the Canadian wilderness, accompanying her entomologist father on research trips studying insects. Her unique upbringing meant she didn't attend a full year of school until the eighth grade.

The self-described "word-addict," who devoured everything from Edgar Allan Poe to comic books, excelled in school. In this clip teachers remember Atwood as a bright and creative student. Atwood even mounted an opera about King Coal and his three daughters, Nylon, Orlon and Dacron for a home economics class. Despite her numerous artistic endeavours, Atwood said she knew she wanted to be a writer after composing a poem in her head while walking home. She was 16.

A precocious and creative child

• Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born in Ottawa on Nov. 18, 1939. She has two siblings; Harold who is two years older and a much younger sister, Ruth, born in 1951.

• Atwood's father Carl Atwood was born in Clyde River, N.S. He was an entomologist who took his family on annual trips to northern Ontario and Quebec. He died in 1993.

• Entomology is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of insects.

• Atwood's mother is also named Margaret which is why the writer is called "Peggy" by her family and friends. Atwood's mother was born in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia.

• When Atwood announced that she wanted to be a writer, everyone thought she was crazy. "So far as anybody knew, there only was one Canadian writer and that was Stephen Leacock. So it was an unusual thing for me to have decided to do and I still don't know why I did that." — Margaret Atwood in January Magazine, Nov. 2000

• In her high school yearbook, her friends wrote: "Peggy's not-so-secret ambition is to write THE Canadian Novel." — Rosemary Sullivan's The Red Shoes, 1998

• One of Atwood's ancestors is Mary Webster who was tried as a witch a decade before the Salem trials of 1692-1693. Webster died in 1696 after being acquitted and miraculously surviving a hanging. Atwood wrote about her in "Half-hanged Mary" in a collection of poems published in 1995.

A precocious and creative child

Medium: Radio

Program: Judy

Broadcast Date: Nov. 4, 1975

Guest(s): Margaret Atwood

Host: Judy LaMarsh

Duration: 17:21

Last updated:
June 2, 2008