Susan Orlean

Renowned for her ability to produce extraordinary stories about relatively ordinary topics, Susan Orlean developed a reputation as one of the most fascinating writers on American subculture, before two of her most famous works received the Hollywood treatment in the shape of "Blue Crush" (2002) and "Adaptation" (2002). Born in Cleveland, OH, in 1955, Orlean studied Literature and History at the University of Michigan and initially intended to attend law school following her graduation. However, after landing a staff writer job at the now-defunct Portland weekly Willamette Week, Orlean abandoned any plans to become a lawyer and instead focused all her efforts into becoming a regular music/fashion contributor to the likes of Rolling Stone, Esquire and Vogue. In 1982, Orlean moved to Boston where she worked for The Boston Phoenix and wrote a column for the Boston Globe Sunday magazine, a series of which were compiled into the Red Sox and Bluefish anthology shortly before her departure in 1987. After relocating to New York, Orlean documented the weekend experiences of two dozen communities across the U.S. in her first book, Saturday Night, and in 1992 joined The New Yorker magazine as a staff writer, where she tackled subjects as diverse as the Harlem high-school basketball star Felipe Lopez, the friends and neighbors of disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding, and pioneering fashion designer Bill Blass. Orlean then went into greater detail on her 1995 profile about a Florida plant dealer arrested for poaching rare orchids, John Laroche, for her second book, 1998's The Orchid Thief, and in the same year penned a Women Outside article, "Life's Swell" about Maui surfer girls. Both pieces were then adapted for the big screen four years later, with the former inspiring "Adaptation" (2002), the Charlie Kaufmann satire in which Orlean was portrayed by Meryl Streep and made a cameo as a scowling waitress, and the latter providing the basis for "Blue Crush" (2002). In 1999, Orlean caused controversy with the tongue-in-cheek extreme weight loss manual, The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!), and in 2001 published a collection of The New Yorker essays, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People, which was later followed by 2004's My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere. After serving as editor on Best American Essays 2005 and Best American Travel Writing 2007, Orlean made her first foray into the children's market with Lazy Little Loafers, a humorous take on how little babies contribute to the world. Having previously published a healthy cookbook for dogs with 2003's Throw Me A Bone, Orlean returned to her passion for animals in 2011 with the autobiographical e-book, Animalish, and a biography of the TV dog she fell in love with as a child, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.