Susan Orlean

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Template:Short description Template:DMCA

Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.

Susan Orlean
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:InfoboxImage/data' not found.
Orlean at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
BornScript error: No such module "person date".
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
DiedScript error: No such module "person date".
OccupationJournalist, author
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Michigan
Website
susanorlean.com

Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".

Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is an American journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. 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. In 2021, Orlean joined the writing team of HBO comedy series How To with John Wilson.

Orlean's 1998 non-fiction book The Orchid Thief was adapted into the film Adaptation (2002). Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Orlean.

Early life

Orlean was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in nearby Shaker Heights,[1] the daughter of Edith (née Gross 1923–2016)[2] and Arthur Orlean (1915–2007).[3] She has a sister and a brother. 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.[4]

Orlean graduated from the University of Michigan with honors in 1976,[5][6] 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.[5]

Career

Orlean has published stories in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Outside and Spy. In 1982, she became a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix and later a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.[5] Her first book, Saturday Night, was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York City from Boston and began writing for The New Yorker magazine. She started contributing to The New Yorker in 1987 and became a staff writer in 1992.[7]

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.[8] Orlean (portrayed by Meryl Streep,[9] who won a Golden Globe for the performance) was, in effect, made into a fictional character. The movie portrayed her becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a psychoactive substance.

In 1998, Orlean's article "Life's Swell" was published in Women's Outside. The article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, become the basis of the film Blue Crush.[9]

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), and in 2011 she published a biographical history of the dog actor Rin Tin Tin titled Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.[9]

When Orlean's son had a school assignment to interview a city employee, he chose a librarian and together they visited the Studio City branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system which reignited her own childhood passion for libraries.[10] After an immersive project involving three years of research and two years of writing on the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library, The Library Book was released in October 2018.[11] The book uses the context of the April 1986 fire to explore the role of the public library, who uses them, and the void created if they are lost.[8] Orlean hired a fact-checker to ensure the book was accurate, explaining "I don't want a substantial error that changes the meaning of my book, but I also don't want silly errors".[12] She collaborated on the adaption for television.[13]

In 2021, Orlean joined the writing staff of television series How To with John Wilson for the show's second season on HBO.[14]

Personal life

Orlean married lawyer Peter Sistrom (1955–2021) 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 in 2004.[9]

She is also step-mother to John's son from his previous marriage.[15]

Orlean is a self-confessed "maniac about architecture."[16] In 2017, she sold a Mid-Century Modern home in Studio City, California that was designed by architect Rudolph Schindler.[17]

Awards and honors

Orlean was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2004.[7][18] She received an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree from the University of Michigan at the spring commencement ceremony in 2012.[7][5] She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 in the "General Nonfiction" field of study.[19][20] Orlean was the winner of the 7th Annual Shorty Awards in the Author category, which honors the best social and digital media.[21]

Bibliography

Page Module:Message box/ambox.css has no content.

Template:TDMCA

Books

Essays and reporting

Notes

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

  1. ^ Online version is titled "The Homesick Restaurant Run by Cuban Refugees". Originally published in the January 15, 1996 issue.
  2. ^ Brendan O'Connell.
  3. ^ Online version is titled "The surreal comedy of internet art".

References

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

  1. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Orlean, Susan (October 5, 2018). "Growing Up in the Library: Learning and relearning what it means to have a book on borrowed time". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  2. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Orlean, Edith". Cleveland Jewish News. February 9, 2016.
  3. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tarullo, Hope (2003). "Orlean, Susan". In Thompson, Clifford (ed.). Current Biography Yearbook. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. pp. 391–394.
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Arthur E. Orlean". Cleveland Jewish News. August 10, 2007.
  5. ^ a b c d Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Six to receive honorary degrees at U-M spring commencement ceremonies". University of Michigan News. March 15, 2012. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  6. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Art of the Profile with Susan Orlean". YouTube. USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. April 27, 2011.
  7. ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Susan Orlean". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  8. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Library Book by Susan Orlean – what LA lost when its library burned down". the Guardian. February 16, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Haldeman, Peter (April 12, 2019). "Havens: Susan Orlean and R.M. Schindler, a love story in two chapters". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  10. ^ Lewis, Michael. "The Library Fire That Ignited an Author’s Imagination", The New York Times, 15 October 2018. Retrieved on 3 January 2020.
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kellogg, Carolyn (October 11, 2018). "Who started the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Library? Susan Orlean investigates in her new book". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Alter, Alexandra (September 22, 2019). "It's a Fact: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Schaub, Michael (April 2, 2019). "Susan Orlean's book about 1986 L.A. library fire headed to television". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  14. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."'How To With John Wilson' Season 2 Trailer Reveals the Return of Everyone's Favorite Anxious New Yorker". Collider. November 11, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Shattuck, Kathryn (December 2, 2001). "WEDDINGS: VOW; Susan Orlean, John Gillespie Jr". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Keith, Kelsey (March 1, 2016). "Home Sweet Home: Susan Orlean". Curbed. Archived from the original on October 17, 2020.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Zap, Claudine (October 5, 2017). "Author Susan Orlean Selling Mid-Century Modern in Studio City for $2.3M". Realtor.com.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."A Conversation with Susan Orlean". Nieman Foundation. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  19. ^ Guggenheim Fellows announced accessed March 20, 2015
  20. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Susan Orlean". Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  21. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Author in Social Media - Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  22. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lyall, Sarah (October 23, 2025). "Susan Orlean Offers Snapshots of a High-Flying Career in 'Joyride'". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2025.
  23. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Conza, Yvonne (November 10, 2025). "JOYRIDE: A Conversation with Susan Orlean". The Rumpus. Retrieved November 25, 2025.
  24. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Woodward, Gabrielle Stetcher (November 21, 2025). "Joyride by Susan Orlean". Open Letters Review. Retrieved November 25, 2025.

Page Module:Side box/styles.css has no content.Page Template:Sister project/styles.css has no content.

Page Template:Plainlist/styles.css has no content.
Script error: No such module "Sister project logo".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Susan Orlean.Template:Preview warning

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Authority control/config' not found.

Retrieved from "http://cosmopedia.co/index.php?title=Susan_Orlean&oldid=346058"