64 What If?

Margaret Atwood

Ontario

Cory Doctorow

Ontario/United Kingdom

Pasha Malla

Ontario

Margaret Atwood, Ontario

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 50 volumes of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Read more

Cory Doctorow, Ontario/United Kingdom

Cory Doctorow is a co-editor of Boing Boing and a columnist for multiple publications, including the Guardian, Locus and Publishers Weekly. He was named one of the Web's 25 influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His award-winning novel Little Brother was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in London with his wife and daughter. His new novel is Pirate Cinema. Read more

Pasha Malla, Ontario

Pasha Malla’s debut short fiction collection, The Withdrawal Method, won the Trillium Book Award and the Danuta Gleed Literary Prize, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Award, longlisted for the Giller Prize and chosen as a Globe and Mail and National Post book of the year. Malla has also published a collection of poems, All Our Grandfathers are Ghosts. His new novel, People Park, is a suspenseful and hilarious slice of social satire. Read more

Saturday, October 20, 2012 - 5:00pm
Performance Works
$17

“What if?” is the jumping-off point for almost all fiction. What if you lived on an unnamed island city where the only bridge connecting the city to the mainland has disappeared? What if the government could cut off your household’s access to the Internet, with no appeal? What if a predicted disaster has finally obliterated most of human life? What if handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples? Margaret Atwood, Cory Doctorow and Pasha Malla are three fine authors who start with an examination of what’s happening now and ask “what if?” At a time when speculative fiction and science fiction seem less and less fictitious, novels can serve—and should serve—as a warning, if we care to heed the message.