Susan Orlean

reporter, writer

Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, contributing profiles, columns, Reporter at Large, Talk of the Town, and Popular Chronicles on subjects ranging from umbrella inventors to figure skater Tonya Harding to clowns. Prior to joining The New Yorker, Orlean was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and at Vogue and has also written for Esquire, Smithsonian, and New York Times Magazine. In addition to her magazine work, Orlean is the author of seven books, including My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere; The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People; Saturday Night; and Lazy Little Loafers. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a best-selling narrative about orchid poachers in Florida. The Orchid Thief was made into the movie Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.