Fiction prize renamed in honour of Margaret Atwood and late partner Graeme Gibson

Margaret Atwood has said that her late partner, the writer Graeme Gibson, would have been “very tickled” that a Canadian literary prize is being renamed after the couple, to honour their “unwavering commitment to supporting Canadian culture”.

Gibson, who died in 2019, and Atwood were two of the five co-founders of the Writers’ Trust of Canada in 1976. On Wednesday, the organisation said that because of their “tireless efforts to build structural supports for the then-nascent Canadian literary community”, it is now renaming its fiction award, won in the past by authors including Alice Munro, as the Atwood Gibson prize.

“He would have been very tickled,” Atwood told the Guardian. “As for me, it would probably be more tactful if I were dead, but I do not have that choice at the moment. And it should certainly be Graeme, because he was really the propelling force behind all of these things. I would never have thought them up on my own.”

Gibson, who was a conservationist as well as an author, also served as president of PEN Canada and won prizes for his writing, which ranged from a miscellany of writings about birds, The Bedside Book of Birds, to novels including Five Legs. He was Atwood’s partner from 1973 until his death.

“We started small publishing houses in the 60s, and then we realised that nobody had an agent, or knew what’s supposed to be in a contract, so that was behind the formation of the Writers’ Union in the early 70s. Out of that came the Writers’ Trust,” said Atwood. “At the beginning it was a train wreck … but now it seems to be in very good hands.”

Atwood recalled a Writers’ Trust fundraising event “in which we got writers to do things that were not entirely within their skillsets”. She herself sang a number with the novelist Robertson Davies. “I think I was singing, ‘Anything you can write, I can write better’,” she said. “Neither of us could actually sing. Afterwards, Graeme said, ‘Isn’t it interesting how people like to see other people who can do one thing quite well, do another thing quite badly’. I have a very screechy Annie Get Your Gun voice.”

When Atwood couldn’t attend a fundraiser a different year, she sent an effigy of herself along with a tape recorder with a recording of her voice, which was auctioned off to raise money for the trust. “Somebody bought it. He carried it off and put it in the back seat of his car, with the feet sticking up with my old Victorian button boots on. A policeman pulled him over because they thought he’d abducted somebody,” said Atwood. “I don’t know what he did with it, it’s vanished into the ether.”

The Atwood Gibson prize winner will now receive CDN$60,000 (£34,500), an increase of $10,000. Atwood said she hoped the relaunch would help to “give it a new burst of energy”.

“Things are kind of thin on the ground for writers, from moment to moment, particularly now. The usual channels whereby they might go out on the road, promote their books, build their audience, do not exist right now,” she said. Both Gibson and she “knew the role a major prize could have on a writer’s confidence and career, not to mention their bank account”.

“I can’t wait to discover the new voices and new stories that this prize rewards,” she said.

The Writers’ Trust said that Gibson and Atwood exemplified “a dedication to artistic excellence in fiction and a commitment to support the larger community of writers”, qualities that the new prize will look to reward.

“The prize is fantastic news for Canadian writers,” said David Young, playwright and fellow co-founder of the trust. “Margaret and Graeme lit the founding fire that brought the Writers’ Trust into being so many years ago. This prize is a perfect way to commemorate their vision and commitment to the broad ecosystem of our literary culture.”