Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on November 18,1939. She started reading and writing at an early age and was particularly drawn to the Brothers Grimm fairy tales because of their active female characters. Greek mythology and its themes of metamorphosis, rebirth, and transformation further excited the young girl's Imagination. Atwood's father was an entomologist and an avid nature lover. The young Atwood spent much time discovering nature in the wilds of Canada while she was growing up, a fact that is evident in much of her Writing. In the book Conversations, Atwood discussed the impact her father's work had on her: "The most transformative thing you can study is insects. They change from one thing into another, and the thing they change into bears no relation to what they were before."

As a high school student in Toronto, Ontario, in the 1950s, Atwood began...