Margaret Atwood and Laurie Anderson talk art, age and more

Margaret Atwood and Laurie Anderson, strangers until w, covered a wide range of topics in ir first public conversation.

Starting with ir s.

“How old are you?” 80-year-old Atwood, best kwn for vel “ Handmaid’s Tale,” asked Anderson, celebrated multimedia artist, and eight years Atwood’s junior. Once established that both grew up in post -World War II era, y discussed Girls Scouts, cheerleing, living in a nuclear world and hopes and obstacles for women in arts.

“I’m from Cana,” Atwood said. In 1940s and 1950s, when she was coming of , “re weren’t any or artists,” man or woman and best option for a Canian was moving elsewhere.

Anderson, a native of Glen Ellyn, Illiis, who moved to New York in her 20s, remembered a more open-ended time when she and fellow artists and bohemians supported each or.

“We didn’t think about women and men,” Anderson said, and “We never thought we’d make a living.”

Atwood and Anderson spoke Monday night in Manhattan before more than 100 people at annual Chairman’s Evening for MacDowell artist colony, where creative people from different fields routinely interact. Previous pairings have included Martin Scorsese and Lin Manuel-Miranda and Lena Dunham and Ta-Nehisi Coates. conversation was moderated by MacDowell chairman Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning velist.