OTTAWA (Canada) • Canadian author Margaret Atwood is launching an online series which she hopes will help Canada's writers sell books to a nation of shut-ins.

But even she has not been immune to the headaches plaguing many people attempting to communicate during the global pandemic.

One came half an hour into a conversation about upcoming books with Adrienne Clarkson, Atwood's friend and fellow author, hosted by Canada's National Arts Centre on Facebook Live. Atwood's image froze.

"Come back, come back," Clarkson said. "Was it anything I said?"

After a few minutes, Atwood reappeared in a different room of her house with a better Internet connection.

The two women continued to go through a list of books they acknowledged that, for the most part, they had not even seen - let alone read - but were written by authors whose earlier works they had enjoyed.

Their chat - which veered into social distancing and gardening, among other subjects - was an extension of a programme the arts centre had started two weeks ago, CanadaPerforms, to provide a paid venue for musicians, actors, comedians and other performers at a time when stages have gone dark around the world.

Initially funded by a donation from the Canadian subsidiary of Facebook, CanadaPerforms had streamed about 100 performances by Thursday last week, some of which have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

The centre pays artists C$1,000 (S$1,015) to stage performances in their homes for the streaming programme.

Writers were initially not part of the mix, largely because the National Arts Centre is focused on performing arts.

That changed as a result of Atwood's involvement.

She had approached Facebook about creating virtual fund-raisers for two other organisations she supports.

In the process, she said, it became apparent that an expanded version of the arts centre's programme for performers might help authors facing cancelled book tours.

"They're really pinched," Atwood said in an interview the day before she launched the authors' series.

"People are scrambling around, improvising and trying to get the word out there."

Atwood has a history of marrying technology and book tours.

Sixteen years ago, she developed a device known as the LongPen that allowed authors to capture handwriting digitally and relay it to a robotic arm at a distant book-signing location.

While it did not take off, she is named in a patent for a secure document system that contains some of its technology.

She is also active on social media, with 1.9 million Twitter followers.

Her recent book The Testaments, the sequel to her 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, won the Booker Prize last year alongside Girl, Woman, Other.

Among the Canadian authors searching for a book-tour replacement is Vivek Shraya, whose second novel, The Subtweet, is scheduled for release this week.

Despite being the author of a book in which social media plays a key role, Shraya said her digital appearance will be a personal novelty.

"This is my first real foray into the virtual world," she said. "I do have that sort of old-fashioned desire to connect in person with people."

The move to homemade online video, said Ms Heather Gibson - who now runs CanadaPerforms but is usually the centre's executive producer of popular music and variety - required some adjustment.

"Here we do things with excellence," she said. "Then we started this programme, and we all had to kind of let go because we have literally no control over the quality of it."

Book programming producers at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and staff at the Writers' Trust of Canada and literary magazine Quill And Quire are helping the centre select the 100 authors.

There are two broad qualifications: They must be Canadian and they must have a book that is being published this spring or summer.

Atwood acknowledged that the online effort is not a perfect substitute for what people are missing.

"It doesn't replace the fun of an audience (or) mass-audience response, but it's better than nothing," she said. "I think we're in the better-than-nothing era - do what you can."

NYTIMES