Margaret Atwood — University of Toronto Convocation Address (1983)

Margaret Atwood's 1983 University of Toronto convocation address. She opens by thanking her alma mater for putting up with her overdue term papers and her illegible handwriting, then credits Victoria College, and especially Northrop Frye, for redirecting her from running away to England to "live in a garret and write masterpieces" into graduate school at Harvard. The speech is vintage Atwood — wry, self-implicating, full of practical advice for young writers and a sustained argument that almost nothing in a creative life is wasted, including the parts that hurt.