Eleanor Wachtel
Encyclopedia
Eleanor Wachtel, CM
(born 1947 in Montreal
, Quebec
) is a Canadian
writer and broadcaster. She is the host of the flagship literary show Writers and Company
on CBC Radio One
, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in October 2010. Her interviews for Writers and Company are in-depth portraits of literary figures which over the years have included Saul Bellow
, Alice Munro
, Michael Ondaatje
and Mordecai Richler
. Kazuo Ishiguro
, author of Remains of the Day, has called Wachtel "one of the very finest interviewers of authors I've come across anywhere in the world."
and Bronte
. She found high school intellectually stimulating, "surrounded by gifted classmates with diverse backgrounds." She studied English literature at McGill University
, where she worked for the student newspaper and was on the executive of the Undergraduate Literary Society.
Following McGill, Wachtel enrolled (“partly by default,” she says) in a master’s in journalism at Syracuse University
. On graduation from the journalism program she accompanied her anthropologist husband to Kenya.
at Simon Fraser University
. In the fall of 1987, Wachtel became Literary Commentator on CBC Stereo's State of the Arts in Toronto. He next assignment was as writer-broadcaster for The Arts Tonight, reporter for The Arts Report. She hosted the Median from 1996 to 2007. Wachtel has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990.
A selection of Wachtel's interviews called Writers and Company; More Writers and Company was published by Knopf Canada in the fall of 1996. In 2003, another selection of her interviews, titled Original Minds, was brought out by HarperCollins. Wachtel is a contributor to the best-selling, Dropped Threads (2001), edited by Carol Shields
and Marjorie Anderson, and Lost Classics (2000), edited by Michael Ondaatje
and others. In 2007, she published Random Illuminations: Conversations With Carol Shields. Wachtel has co-edited two books: The Expo Story (1986), and Language in Her Eye (1990), and is the co-author of A Feminist Guide to the Canadian Constitution (1992).
Wachtel has been awarded several honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Laws from Concordia University
in Montreal (2010), a Doctor of English Literature from McGill University
in Montreal (2009), a Doctor of Laws, from Dalhousie University
in Halifax (2007), and the Doctor of Letters
(D. Litt.) from Simon Fraser University
, Burnaby, B.C. (2007); Mount Saint Vincent University
, Halifax (2002); Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
, Vancouver (2001); Athabasca University
, Athabasca, Alberta (2000); St. Thomas University
, Fredericton (1999). In 2005, Wachtel was named a member of the Order of Canada
.
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(born 1947 in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
) is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
writer and broadcaster. She is the host of the flagship literary show Writers and Company
Writers and Company
Writers & Company is a Canadian radio show that airs Sunday afternoons on CBC Radio One. Hosted by Eleanor Wachtel, the program broadcasts interviews with Canadian and international writers....
on CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in October 2010. Her interviews for Writers and Company are in-depth portraits of literary figures which over the years have included Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, Alice Munro
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short-story writer, the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction, and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize...
, Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
and Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler, CC was a Canadian Jewish author, screenwriter and essayist. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation" and a pivotal figure in the country's history. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Barney's Version,...
. Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro OBE or ; born 8 November 1954) is a Japanese–English novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing...
, author of Remains of the Day, has called Wachtel "one of the very finest interviewers of authors I've come across anywhere in the world."
Early life
Wachtel was born in Montreal in 1947. Interested in books and reading from an early age, her Grade 8 teacher introduced her to the works of ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Bronte
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
. She found high school intellectually stimulating, "surrounded by gifted classmates with diverse backgrounds." She studied English literature at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, where she worked for the student newspaper and was on the executive of the Undergraduate Literary Society.
Following McGill, Wachtel enrolled (“partly by default,” she says) in a master’s in journalism at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
. On graduation from the journalism program she accompanied her anthropologist husband to Kenya.
Career
After living in Kenya, and the United States, she moved to Vancouver in the mid-'70s where she worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster. During this time she was Adjunct Professor of Women's StudiesWomen's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
. In the fall of 1987, Wachtel became Literary Commentator on CBC Stereo's State of the Arts in Toronto. He next assignment was as writer-broadcaster for The Arts Tonight, reporter for The Arts Report. She hosted the Median from 1996 to 2007. Wachtel has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990.
A selection of Wachtel's interviews called Writers and Company; More Writers and Company was published by Knopf Canada in the fall of 1996. In 2003, another selection of her interviews, titled Original Minds, was brought out by HarperCollins. Wachtel is a contributor to the best-selling, Dropped Threads (2001), edited by Carol Shields
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields, CC, OM, FRSC, MA was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.-Biography:Shields was born in Oak Park, Illinois...
and Marjorie Anderson, and Lost Classics (2000), edited by Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
and others. In 2007, she published Random Illuminations: Conversations With Carol Shields. Wachtel has co-edited two books: The Expo Story (1986), and Language in Her Eye (1990), and is the co-author of A Feminist Guide to the Canadian Constitution (1992).
Awards and honours
In 1995, Wachtel's program Writers & Company, won CBC's Award for Programming Excellence for the best national weekly. According to the show's website, the judges said that if they were to "choose one hour of radio to take to a desert island, it would be Writers & Company." Writers & Company again won the CBC excellence award in 2003. In 2002, Wachtel won the Jack Award for the promotion of Canadian books and authors.Wachtel has been awarded several honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Laws from Concordia University
Concordia University
Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...
in Montreal (2010), a Doctor of English Literature from McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Montreal (2009), a Doctor of Laws, from Dalhousie University
Dalhousie University
Dalhousie University is a public research university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university comprises eleven faculties including Schulich School of Law and Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. It also includes the faculties of architecture, planning and engineering located at...
in Halifax (2007), and the Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
(D. Litt.) from Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
, Burnaby, B.C. (2007); Mount Saint Vincent University
Mount Saint Vincent University
Mount Saint Vincent University is a university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was established in 1873 and is locally referred to as The Mount.-History:...
, Halifax (2002); Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
Emily Carr University of Art and Design is a public post-secondary University located on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, Canada...
, Vancouver (2001); Athabasca University
Athabasca University
Athabasca University is a Canadian university in Athabasca, Alberta. It is an accredited research institution which also offers distance education courses and programs. Courses are offered primarily in English with some French offerings. Each year, 32,000 students attend the university. It offers...
, Athabasca, Alberta (2000); St. Thomas University
St. Thomas University
Schools with the name St. Thomas University:*St. Thomas University *St. Thomas University *St. Thomas University, Japan...
, Fredericton (1999). In 2005, Wachtel was named a member of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
.
External links
- CBC.ca Writers and Company website