(photos courtesy Emanu-El)
Gregor Craigie, host of CBC Radio One’s On the Island, interviews Eleanor Wachtel at Congregation Emanu-El on Sept. 15, at 2 p.m., about her career helming the CBC’s premier literary program, Writers & Company. During her 33-year tenure with the show, Wachtel spoke with a Who’s Who of authors, including Saul Bellow, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, John le Carré and Kazuo Ishiguro.
“[Eleanor’s] sense of respect, her tact, her utter lack of obsequiousness . . . and her uncanny ability to ask difficult questions have endeared her to readers and listeners,” said Canadian writer Carol Shields, whose book, The Stone Diaries, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1995.
Craigie is both an author and an expert interviewer in his own right. A journalist for more than 25 years, his most recent book, Our Crumbling Foundation, which examines Canada’s housing crisis, is a national bestseller.
The event is part of Emanu-El’s 160th anniversary celebrations, and is a fundraiser for the synagogue, which is undergoing structural and other renovations. Tickets ($36) can be purchased at ticketowl.io/cevbc.
– Courtesy Congregation Emanu-El