An excerpt from Margaret Atwood's classic story, The Handmaid's Tale. This is a word of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. First Anchor Books Edition, April 1998 Copyright © 1986 by O. W. Toad, Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1986. The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. www.anchorbooks.com

Margaret Atwood’s story “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” from her new collection Stone Mattress, leaves the reader with many tantalizing questions. How does it end? Will Sam be a killer or a victim? What are the other characters’ versions of events? Answer some of these questions, or ask some of your own, by writing a fanfiction inspired by the characters or events of “The Freeze-Dried Groom.” Share your version of this haunting tale with Margaret Atwood and Wattpadders everywhere, and you could win!