Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Atwood Gets Creative

Margaret Atwood is about to release her latest novel, The Year of the Flood, and she's livening up her book tour with a “live performance with original music.” The Toronto Star describes the planned show:
The hour-long performance will feature 14 hymns – one for each chapter – which Atwood wrote, to the music of L.A.-based composer Orville Stoeber. A three-person cast will perform along with a choir, all of whom will be local talent.
Atwood explains why this novel, her 13th, merits this innovation:
I felt this particular novel deserved a more complex presentation. It's also a great chance to work with other creative minds and see their interpretation of the story come to light.
Set for publication on September 22nd, The Year of the Flood is a sequel of sorts to Atwood's earlier novel Oryx & Crake and “is set in a future where the world has undergone dramatic change as a result of decades of environmental degradation.”

In conjunction with the book tour, Atwood is also blogging, complete with photos of dinner guests and witty comments. An interesting new way to sell books.

3 comments:

Meytal Radzinski said...

Considering how much press her new blog is getting, I'm not surprised that she wanted to start one. In addition to serving as good publicity, it can occasionally be a nice way to connect with fans and also to draw new ones in. There are many cases of readers who upon finding funny or interesting author blogs seek out books by the author. I'm not sure if this is a "new" way to sell books (some authors have been blogging for years, though it's true that most aren't exactly mainstream) but there's no doubt that it's interesting.

Anonymous said...

I am excited about the release of this book, and eager to read it. I think it's neat that she has all these new ideas on promoting this book, and I think it'd be interesting to be able to hear a sample of the music.

Unknown said...

I have not read her books in the past, but this is certainly an interesting way to promote the book. I really has a beautiful cover as well.