Inside Ayn Rand’s Writing Process: Archival Material Newly Published Online
Rand’s planning notes for "We the Living," rare audio recordings, and more now accessible
The Ayn Rand Archives has set ambitious goals for making more of Ayn Rand’s archival material available, and we are pleased to announce the achievement of important milestones this year.
Volunteers in our transcription project have now provided rough draft transcripts for more than 7,000 pages. This ongoing volunteer support has dramatically increased the amount of material that we can make available online, and the first releases are accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
Our biggest announcement is that the first batch of transcribed Ayn Rand material is now available online:
Users can explore the entirety of Ayn Rand’s planning material for her debut novel, We the Living.
In addition, an archival supplement of material related to Rand’s “Screen Guide for Americans” is available, including drafts of short film reviews by Rand never published during her lifetime.
Thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, these materials are full-text searchable. We encourage users to explore the contents, and to share these links with anyone else who might be interested in this Rand material.
More material will be online later this year. We plan to release the complete planning material for The Fountainhead (including many pages beyond what is currently available online), as well as the archival materials from Russian Writings on Hollywood by the end of 2026.
Two new publications based on or drawn from archival material are also available:
Ayn Rand’s Immigration Story: I Chose to Be an American by Agustina Vergara Cid and Brandon Lisi
“Screen Guide for Americans” by Ayn Rand, with a new afterword by Michael Berliner, and archival documents (also available in the online archival supplement)
In addition to these current releases, the second edition eBook of Letters of Ayn Rand has been available since December 2025, and a definitive Archives edition of Anthem, curated by Robert Mayhew, is forthcoming.
Our final announcement is that additional Ayn Rand audio, not previously available online, will be coming soon:
Available now, exclusively in the new Ayn Rand Institute app, are approximately 14 minutes of audio from Ayn Rand’s appearance on the CBS show The Great Challenge in 1962. Rand, along with several other participants, responded to questions such as: “Do you believe that individual freedoms in this country are eroding?”
Ayn Rand participated in the radio show Night Call with Del Shields on March 12, 1969, answering questions from Shields and from various listeners calling in. The full hour of this radio show will be available online in 2026.
Making a growing amount of Ayn Rand material available online is a vital, strategic goal for the Archives. It provides evidence of Rand’s development as a novelist-philosopher to individuals around the world, allowing them to explore more of her thought and to make objective judgments about her work. We will continue to share updates as we achieve the milestones we’ve set to reach this goal, and we hope that you will continue to find both enjoyment and edification as you explore these materials.
Photo credit: J. Paul Getty Trust / Getty Research Institute