Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published eighteen books of poetry, eighteen novels, eleven books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
Margaret B. Peeke was an American traveler, lecturer, and author of the long nineteenth centurys. In her early life, Peeke taught at a public school and her own private school. Later, she taught Hermetic philosophy in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere (1893–98); visited Hermetic societies abroad (1898–99); and had an assembly of followers in Sandusky, Ohio. She served as Inspectress-General in the U.S. of the Martinist Order of France, and as treasurer of Light of France, Hermetic Society of France. She was a member of the Baháʼí Faith and of the Rose Cross Martinist Fraternity.
Margaret Bayard Smith was an American author and political commentator in the early Republic of the United States, a time when women generally lived within strict gender roles. Her writings and relationships shaped both politics and society in the capital of early Washington, DC. Her literary reputation is based primarily on a collection of her letters and notebooks written from 1800 to 1841, and published posthumously in 1906 as The First Forty Years of Washington Society, edited by Gaillard Hunt.
Margaret Beames was a multi-award-winning author of children's books who lived in Feilding, New Zealand. Her first book was The Greenstone Summer, published in 1977. She had 42 books published, including one posthumously.
Margaret Louise Carter is an American politician who was a Democratic member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly from 1985 to 1999 and 2001 to 2009 and was the first black woman elected to the state's legislature. She served in the Oregon House of Representatives until 1999, and then in the Oregon State Senate from 2001 to 2009. She served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Vice Chair for Ways and Means, and as a member of both the Health and Human Services and Oregon State Hospital Patient Care committees. She announced her resignation from the Senate effective August 31, 2009, and took a post as Deputy Director for Human Services Programs at the Oregon Department of Human Services. In 2015, she was reportedly considering a return to the senate.