Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is an American journalist and author. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.
She is best known as the author of the 1998 book The Orchid Thief, which was adapted into the film Adaptation (2002). Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Orlean.
Video Susan Orlean
Personal life
Orlean was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Edith (née Gross 1923-2016) and Arthur Orlean (1915-2007). She has a sister, Debra, and a brother, David. Her family is Jewish. Her mother's family is from Hungary and her father's family from Poland. Her father was an attorney and businessman.
She graduated from the University of Michigan, studying literature and history. After college she moved to Portland, Oregon, and was planning on going to law school, when she began writing for the Willamette Week. She married lawyer Peter Sistrom in 1983, and they divorced after 16 years of marriage. She was introduced by a friend to author and businessman John Gillespie, whom she married in 2001, and she gave birth to their son Austin in 2004. She is also step-mother to John's son from his previous marriage, Jay Gillespie.
Maps Susan Orlean
Career
She later went on to publish stories in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Outside and Spy. In 1982, she moved to Boston and became a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix and later a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her first book, Saturday Night, was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York and began writing for The New Yorker magazine. She became a New Yorker staff writer in 1992.
Orlean authored the book The Orchid Thief, a profile of Florida orchid grower, breeder and collector John Laroche. The book formed the basis of Charlie Kaufman's script for the Spike Jonze film Adaptation. Orlean (portrayed by Meryl Streep, who won a Golden Globe for the performance) was, in effect, made into a fictional character; the movie portrayed her as becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a psychoactive substance.
She also wrote the Women's Outside article, "Life's Swell" (published 1998). The article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, was the basis of the film Blue Crush.
In 1999, she co-wrote "The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!)" under her married name, Susan Sistrom. Her previously published magazine stories have been compiled in two collections, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere. She also served as editor for Best American Essays 2005 and Best American Travel Writing 2007. She contributed the Ohio chapter in State By State (2008). She recently published a biographical history about the dog actor Rin Tin Tin.
Orlean was also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2003. Orlean received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Michigan at the spring commencement ceremony in 2012. She was given a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.
Select bibliography
Non-fiction
- Saturday Night (1990)
- The Orchid Thief (1998)
- The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People (2001)
- My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere (2004)
- Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend (2011)
- The Floral Ghost (2016)
Articles
- Orlean, Susan (28 September 2009). "Popular Chronicles: The It Bird". The New Yorker. 85 (30): 26-31.
- Orlean, Susan (1998). "Life's Swell". Women's Outside.
- Orlean, Susan (December 1992). "The American Male at Age Ten". Esquire.
Ebooks
- Animalish (Kindle Single) (2011)
References
External links
- Susan Orlean Official Website
- IdentityTheory.com interview
- New Yorker contributor page for Susan Orlean
- Susan Orlean articles at Byliner
- Susan Orlean discusses Rin Tin Tin on The Lit Show
- 2011 radio interview at The Bat Segundo Show
- Radio Interview with Susan Orlean on "Read First, Ask Later" (Ep. 20)
Olrean joined Brendan O'Meara on The Creative Nonfiction Podcast for Episode 61 to talk about the entrepreneurial nature of a writing career.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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