Margaret Atwood is channeling her inner 13-year old boy and is writing a comic book.

Oh, excuse me--a "graphic novel." Everyone knows "comic books" are sooo 1960s.

Atwood, Canada's literary bridesmaid and never the bride (looking at you, Alice Munro), has agreed to pen a three volume story called Angel Catbird, to be illustrated by Johnnie Christmas.

The background to the story, explained Atwood in a press release, is fairly basic. "Due to some spilled genetic Super-Slicer, our hero got tangled up with both a cat and an owl; hence his fur and feathers, and his identity problems," she said.

No way! I thought a man who accidentally had his genes spliced with a cat and owl would be so emotionally stable. I'm stunned!






If Johnnie Christmas isn't one of the all-time great names, nothing is. What, was famed illustrator Tommy Hanukkah busy?



Illustration: Johnnie Christmas

Should they sit at the kids' table or with the adults? Seventeen famous writers as children judged.

Did you grow up eating at the kids' table during Thanksgiving? You know, when your family chose to banish you into a corner with an assortment of cousins that you rarely saw and hardly liked? The cousin who's a few oats short of a Cheerio? The other cousin who lacks personal grooming habits and doesn't know the tender touch of a facecloth? Yeah--that happened to a lot of us.

We were all kids at some point though. Some of us were debonair, and some of us were a hot mess. And so were famous writers.

Here are seventeen famous writers when they were children or teenagers--and whether they should luck out and eat with the adults or be at the kids' table for Thanksgiving:

1.) Robert Frost

Even as a baby, Frost couldn't manage a smile. And it all went downhill from here.

Kids' table!

2.) Vladimir Nabokov

The snappy tie, the tube socks channeling his wannabe inner Flashdance waiting to break free, all while rocking penny loafers.

Adults' table!

3.) Virginia Woolf

She even judges while playing cricket. You don't need her judging your homemade stuffing, too.

Kids' table!

4.) Langston Hughes

Somewhere under that giant mound of baby clothes is Hughes. Is he a wizard? He might be a wizard.

Adults' table!

5.) Roald Dahl

There's a 50% chance he just walked off the set of Downton Abbey.

Adults' table!

6.) Jorge Luis Borges

It's as if baby Spock just came back from a cruise ship adventure.

Adults' table!

7.) F. Scott Fitzgerald

A whip for the toy horse?

And we all know he's going to drink all the booze anyway...

Kids' table!

8.) Franz Kafka

Is that a goat? Ram? Sheep?

Whatever it is, it has a hat. No one can deny a hat-wearing sheep is a winning look.

Adults' table!

9.) Carl Jung

That's the face of judgment. No one needs that while eating the sweet potatoes.

Kids' table!

10.) J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien and his younger brother are channeling the pilgrim look. But they're missing the stylish hats with the belt buckles.

Kids' table!

11.) Aldous Huxley

The shoes say, "I came here on the Mayflower."

The sour face says, "I need a nap."

Kids' table!

12. Arthur Rimbaud

You just kind of get the vibe that after he passes you the bowl of peas, he'll politely read you a poem.

Adults' table!

13.) Alice Munro

You try wearing a bonnet and look so cute. You can't, can you?

Adults' table!

14.) Flannery O'Connor

She might be good with small talk, but the entire time she'll be plotting a short story where she makes you a creep.

Kids' table!

15.) Noam Chomsky

Don't let the coy smile fool you. That starched white collar channels a Miles Standish quality.

Kids' table!

16.) Victor Hugo

Little Lord Fauntleroy, is that you?

Adults' table!

17.) Stephen King

You usually only see 85-year old men wearing pants that high.

Adults' table!

Gary Shteyngart says Canada lacks good writers.

After taking his right foot out of his mouth, Shteyngart then placed his left foot quickly back in, further claiming that Canadian writers don't take risks.

Canada--home of Margaret Atwood and 2013 Nobel Prize winner Alice Monro, among other literary deadbeats--isn't pleased. And by 'isn't pleased' I mean they felt offended and immediately apologized for feeling offended.

Shteyngart took to Twitter to claim he's sorry--#drunkenstupor. See! He was drunk! You don't know what kind of crazy might come out of his mouth! It's the sauce talking!

Thank God it's the booze causing loose lips. I wouldn't want Americans to sound like elitist jerks who make excuses for an ineffective liver.





Here's a (not really) funny haha:
I met Shteygart once, listening to a flat-lining, coma-inducing talk that offered all the titillation of Days of Our Lives, circa 1983. He portrayed himself as a visionary two-steps ahead of everyone else on the planet--who knows better than you, who knows better than you think, who knows better than your grandma.

But now that I know he blames his faux pas on booze, I assume he was just tanked on Jack and Coke.


photo: WSJ.


In other news, Shteyngart has a memoir coming out. This is why he's hitting all the big media outlets and trying to get up in Canada's grill. It's what bullies do. They start fights with pacifists and then blame it on latent alcoholism.

In case you're wondering what a Nobel Prize in Literature official announcement looks like...

It involves a hoard of media standing around a door like a poor man's paparazzi, until the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy comes out and speaks for roughly sixty seconds. At some point the crowd cheers like degenerate gamblers with a stash of cash riding on the announcement.

Fast-forward to the 7:30 mark for an (English) interview with Peter Englund, the permanent secretary who announced the victor.

Best part? The interviewer describes having read Alice Munro "now and then over the years," and that she writes about "Canadia," a "small world...of backwater towns."

Canada--the Alabama of the north.

Nobel laureates grow like cabbages in Canada.

In all the hubbub of Alice Munro's inability to answer her telephone, the Nobel organization's Twitter feed also shared random facts associated with Munro's win. These include:

• There have been 110 winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature
  
• Alice Munro is the 13th woman to win.
  
• With her selection, Munro is the 27th Laureate in Literature to write in the English language.
  
• Munro is the 17th Nobel winner born in Canada.

The total is 23 Canadians if you count those born elsewhere that later moved to Canada. That's 23 winners in all categories--be it literature, chemistry, physics, etc. For a country with only 33.5 million people, that's not bad.

Only one Canadian has won the Nobel Peace Prize though. Lester B. Pearson won in 1957 for helping broker peace during the Suez Canal Crisis that started a year earlier. By comparison, 21 Americans have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The logical conclusion here? Canadians are war-loving peace haters.

2013 Nobel Laureate, Alice Munro, needs to check her voicemail.

Canadian Alice Munro was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.

But when the Nobel committee called Munro to let her know of the good news, they got her voicemail.

The Swedish Academy has not been able to get a hold of Alice Munro, left a phone message. #NobelPrize #Literature
— Nobelprize_org (@Nobelprize_org) October 10, 2013

Munro, who lives in rural Ontario, is known to be notoriously private. A handful of hours later though, the Nobel organization was thrilled to finally get a hold of Munro, who must've been out chopping wood, mushing reindeer, or whatever rural Canadians do in their spare time.

We reached #AliceMunro, phone interview soon to follow! #NobelPrize in #Literature
— Nobelprize_org (@Nobelprize_org) October 10, 2013

Munro's inability to pick up the phone doesn't match Doris Lessing's response. The 2007 Nobel Laureate hopped out of a taxi when she was met by reporters. This was her response: