From the above photo, you’ll see a nice old lady having a conversation with an undergraduate Butler student. What is actually occurring is quite different. A Butler student is having a conversation with an author who is on the cutting edge of social media and marketing.

Margaret Atwood (who I recently met) is a published author. That doesn’t mean she’s stuck in the old way of doing things. She has a twitter account that she actively uses (Follow her @MargaretAtwood). This immediately places her ahead of millions of college age students, the supposed “Digital Natives.”

She also has a blog that she publishes regularly (this I hear is the coolest thing to be doing nowadays). And, like any well-to-do person these days, she has a website. The coolest bit of progress she is heading is the serial publishing of a novel online. I do not know yet where it is (or if it has been released yet), but if I do this blog will be the first to know. Authors are SO COOL!!! Alright…ahem…nerding finished.

Are you still meeting a legend if you don’t technically know who she is or what she’s done? Well, yeah. It just means you’re ignorant.

Photos courtesy of President Danko! Follow him on Twitter @ButlerPrez

I found myself in this very situation last Wednesday on the arrival of Margaret Atwood, internationally recognized novelist, poet, scholar, feminist, and thinker. And she’s Canadian to boot. Part of the Visiting Writer’s Series here at Butler University, I found myself invited to President Danko‘s house for a dinner, a reception of Atwood by professors and students.

Prior to the dinner, I did a bit of research into this visiting writer, and quickly discovered that she was a voice I wanted to be familiar with. Then I got the incredibly rare chance to meet her. Now I’m reading one of her books (it seems like at Butler, we do things backwards).

She was a pretty rad lady: all of the students were more timid around her than she was around us. Many were familiar with her fantastic novels (such as  The Handmaids Tale and Oryx and Crake, which I am currently reading). Science fiction is only one arena she spends her time in. She also has worked extensively writing poetry and non-fiction. And does everything with the same ingredient: awesomeness.