Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood arrived at UCLA’s Royce Hall during a blitz of international travel for her novel The Year of the Flood. She stepped up firmly onto a box behind a lectern on the massive stage, and her voice filled the hall as she read. Atwood wore tidy but travel-easy black trousers and a blousy black jacket with asymmetric blocks of fuchsia and orange down the center and on the sleeves. During musical numbers that punctuated her narration, she delicately clapped and bobbed her head or bounced her feet. Afterward, not one of her signature silver curls out of place, she spent nearly two hours at a draped table in the lobby, signing books, nodding to fans, and leaning in for the occasional photo. Atwood smiles with her eyes, rarely showing her teeth.