Margaret Atwood Net Worth

What is Margaret Atwood's Net Worth?

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer and inventor who has a net worth of $10 million. Margaret Atwood has published numerous novels, poetry and short story collections, non-fiction books, and children's books, with her best-known work being her 1985 dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale." As an inventor, Atwood created the LongPen device and other technologies for remote robotic writing.

Early Life and Education

Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada as the second of three children of dietitian and nutritionist Margaret and entomologist Carl. Her siblings are Ruth and Harold. Atwood spent her childhood between Ottawa, Toronto, and Sault Ste. Marie, and also in the backwoods of northern Quebec, where her father researched forest entomology. She didn't attend school full-time until the age of 12. Atwood grew into an avid reader, and graduated from Leaside High School in 1957. She subsequently attended the University of Toronto's Victoria College, where she published her writing in the biannual literary journal Acta Victoriana. After graduating with her BA in English in 1961, Atwood went to graduate school at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she earned her MA in 1962. She went on to pursue a doctoral degree but did not complete her dissertation.

Books

Atwood's first publication was the poetry collection "Double Persephone," which she self-published in 1961. Her next poetry collection, "The Circle Game," was published in 1964 and went on to win the Governor General's Award. After publishing a few more collections of poetry, including "Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein" and "The Animals in That Country," Atwood published her first novel, "The Edible Woman," in 1969. In the 1970s, she published six poetry collections; her first children's book, short story collection, and non-fiction works; and the novels "Surfacing," "Lady Oracle," and "Life Before Man." The three novels, like her first in 1969, examine the intersections of gender, identity, and politics. Atwood's profile continued to rise in the 1980s with multiple further poetry collections, short story collections, non-fiction works, and novels.

In 1985, she published what would become her most famous work, the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale," about a near-future in which women are forced to bear children for a patriarchal totalitarian regime that has taken over the United States. Highly acclaimed, the novel won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Governor General's Award and was a finalist for the Booker Prize. Atwood's next novel, "Cat's Eye," came out in 1988 and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize.

Atwood had many lauded works in the 1990s, including the short story collection "Wilderness Tips," the poetry collection "Morning in the Burned House," and the novels "The Robber Bride" and "Alias Grace." The latter novel, a work of historical fiction about the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, won the Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. Atwood published her tenth novel, "The Blind Assassin," in 2000, and won both the Booker Prize and the Hammett Prize for it. She went on to publish the novel "Oryx and Crake" in 2003; it served as the first novel in a dystopian trilogy that continued with "The Year of the Flood" (2009) and "MaddAddam" (2013). Meanwhile, Atwood published the novella "The Penelopiad" (2005); the short story collections "The Tent" and "Moral Disorder" (both 2006); the poetry collection "The Door" (2007); and the non-fiction book "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" (2008). She also began releasing her first e-books. In 2015, Atwood published the novel "The Heart Goes Last," and in 2016 she published the novel "Hag-Seed," a modern retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Also in 2016, she began writing the superhero comic book series "Angel Catbird" with illustrator Johnnie Christmas. At the end of the decade, Atwood published the novel "The Testaments"; a sequel to "The Handmaid's Tale," it was a joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.

(Photo by Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images)

Other Published Works and Projects

Among her various other published works, Atwood has written some screenplays, including for the television films "The Servant Girl" (1974) and "Heaven on Earth" (1987) and the anthology series "Snowbird." She later wrote the libretto to the chamber opera "Pauline," which premiered at Vancouver's York Theatre in 2014.

Beyond her writing, Atwood invented the LongPen, a remote writing device that allows its user to write remotely in ink via a touchscreen device operating a robotic hand. Invented in 2004, it debuted in 2006. Atwood subsequently founded the company Unotchit, later renamed Syngrafii, through which she has developed other remote writing technologies.

Teaching

Atwood has taught at many universities throughout her career. In the 1960s, she lectured at the University of British Columbia and was an instructor at Sir George Williams University and the University of Alberta. Atwood taught at York University and was a writer in residence at the University of Toronto in the early 1970s. She had stints at numerous universities in the 1980s, including the University of Alabama, New York University, and Macquarie University.

Personal Life

Atwood married fellow writer Jim Polk in 1968. They divorced in 1973. Atwood subsequently began a relationship with novelist Graeme Gibson, with whom she had a daughter, Eleanor, in 1976. The couple never married, but remained together until Gibson's passing in 2019.

Who's Richer?

Margaret
Atwood

Compare!

Leonardo
DiCaprio