Interviews with Leading Thinkers and Writers

For more than 25 years, Athabasca University staff have been speaking with academics, educators, song-writers, and literary notables about their creative processes and latest projects. The collected interviews offer new insights into over 100 Canadian and internationally known thinkers and writers including Leonard Cohen, Pierre Berton, Neil Bissoondath, Timothy Findley, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Doug Roche, Susan George, Helen Caldicott, Paolo Freire, George Ritzer, Michael Parenti, E.P. Thompson and many more. Moments in time, the interviews remain relevant to today's reading public interested in tracing an essayist's development, or for academics seeking new entry points into a writer's monographs, research, and reflections.

The original print based Aurora journal ended production in 1991. As an example of what was possible with online journals, AU staff produced an internet version of the Aurora articles in 1997, with text, visual design and even sound clips. We also dipped into the archives to make some of the old interviews available online (with updates and links to additional web resources about authors). Over 42 of those interviews are listed by original year of publication. You can search by last name under the sort link, be sure to check the update section in these interviews for information about new publications and activities by the interviewees.

Since 2003, as the opportunity arises, we have been developing a handful of new interviews with notable thinkers.

If you are interested in developing an interview for Aurora see For Authors for more information.