Margaret Atwood draws more than 1,000 people to Charlottetown book talk

It is safe to say there is a lot of buzz on P.E.I. aboutMargaret Atwood's latest novel.

About 1,200 people piled into the Prince Edward Island Convention Centre Friday to hear Atwood be interviewed by CBC's Carol Off, host of As it Happens.

The novel, The Testaments, is a sequel to the popular Handmaid's Tale, which was turned into a TV series.

The Testaments was released in September and Atwood has been on a publicity tour since. Her stop in Charlottetown was hosted by a local bookstore, Bookmark Charlottetown.

While Atwood has been travelling the country at the same time as many federal candidates, she said she wouldn't make a great Canadian political leader.

"I would make a very, very, very bad politician. I know this of myself," Atwood said.

"When I was chair of the writers' union the meetings were the shortest they had ever had," she said.

Atwood's lengthy literary career is still going strong.

The Testaments has already broken records, selling more print copies in the first week than any other Canadian book since BookNet Canada began tracking sales data in 2005.

However, when the crowd stood for anovation, Atwood said: "I am not really a rock star."

The novel is already in the running for both the U.K.'s Man Booker Prize and Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize.

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