Eleanor Wachtel was born (1947) and raised in Montreal. She studied English at McGill University, lived in the United States and Kenya, and worked in Vancouver as a freelancer writer and a CBC Radio theatre critic in the 1970s and 1980s. She was also one of the editors of the feminist literary quarterly, Room of One's Own, preparing studies of Dorothy Livesay and Elizabeth Smart. For five years she was an adjunct professor of Women's Studies at SFU. In the fall of 1987 she moved to Toronto and worked for CBC Stereo's State of the Arts program, The Arts Tonight and The Arts Report. Known for her dry wit and intelligent questions, she was long the host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company from its inception in 1990. Since 1996, she also hosted The Arts Today. She's received honorary degrees from St. Thomas University (1999) in New Brunswick, Athabasca University (2000) in Athabasca, Alberta, the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design (2001) in Vancouver and Simon Fraser University (2007). Her book, Random Illuminations, is a collection of interviews and correspondence with Carol Shields that spans their friendship of nearly two decades.

Publications:

Random Illuminations (2007)
Original Minds (Harper Flamingo, 2003)
More Writers and Company: New Conversations with CBC Radio (Knopf, 1996)
Writers and Company (Knopf, 1993)
Language in her Eye (Co-editor) (Coach House, 1990)
The Expo Story (Co-editor with Robert Anderson) (Harbour, 1987)

Awards:

Jack Award for promoting Canadian books and authors (2002)
Four honorary doctorates, including Doctor of Humane Letters, Mount St. Vincent University, Halifax (2002) and Doctor of Letters, Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design (2001)

[BCBW 2007]