Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

That being said, it must also be said that Fletcher Correctional is of course a fictional institution. It’s doubtful that any place exactly like it exists, though many share some of its features.

Felix Phillips borrowed his last name from the late Robin Phillips, long-time theatre director at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. To see his magic at work, view the excellent documentary Robin and Mark and Richard III , in which he transforms an unlikely actor into the sinister Richard before your very eyes.

Anne-Marie Greenland plays the part of Miranda thanks to an auction run by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

And much about conversing with dead loved ones and other strange experiences can be learned in The Third Man Factor , by John Geiger.

My gratitude to my longsuffering editors, Becky Hardie of Hogarth and Louise Dennys of Knopf Canada, who nudged me to tell more; and to my copyeditor, Heather Sangster of Strongfinish.ca. Also to my editor of over twenty-six years at McClelland & Stewart, Ellen Seligman, who passed away in March 2016 without having been able to read this book.

Thanks also to my first readers: Jess Atwood Gibson; Eleanor Cook; Xandra Bingley; Vivienne Schuster and Karolina Sutton of Curtis Brown, my U.K. agents; and to Phoebe Larmore, my longtime agent in North America; and to Ruth Atwood and Ralph Siferd.

And to Louise Court, Ashley Dunn, and Rachel Rokicki, of Penguin Random House, who sped me on my way during publication time.

Thanks also to Devon Jackson, who helped with some primary research on prisons. Also to my assistant, Suzanna Porter; and to Penny Kavanaugh; and to V. J. Bauer, who designed my website at margaretatwood.ca. Also to Sheldon Shoib and Mike Stoyan, who keep track. And to Michael Bradley, Sarah Cooper, and Jim Wooder, to Coleen Quinn and Xiaolan Zhao, and to Evelyn Heskin; and to Terry Carman and the Shock Doctors, for keeping the lights on. Finally, my special thanks to Graeme Gibson — an old enchanter, though happily not the one in this book.

The Edible Woman

Surfacing

Lady Oracle

Life Before Man

Bodily Harm

The Handmaid’s Tale

Cat’s Eye

The Robber Bride

Alias Grace

The Blind Assassin

Oryx and Crake

The Penelopiad

The Year of the Flood

MaddAddam

The Heart Goes Last SHORT FICTION

Dancing Girls

Murder in the Dark

Bluebeard’s Egg

Wilderness Tips

Good Bones and Simple Murders

The Tent

Moral Disorder

Stone Mattress POETRY

Double Persephone

The Circle Game

The Animals in That Country

The Journals of Susanna Moodie

Procedures for Underground

Power Politics

You Are Happy

Selected Poems: 1965–1975

Two-Headed Poems

True Stories

Interlunar

Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New, 1976–1986

Morning in the Burned House

Eating Fire: Selected Poetry, 1965–1995

The Door NONFICTION

Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature

Days of the Rebels: 1815–1840

Second Words

Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004

Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing

Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose, 1983–2005

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination CHILDREN’S

Up in the Tree

Anna’s Pet (with Joyce Barkhouse)

For the Birds

Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut

Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes

Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda

Wandering Wenda