# Susan Orlean

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/caropop-4326665/susan-orlean
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/caropop-4326665/susan-orlean.md
Podcast: [Caropop](https://stenobird.com/podcast/caropop-4326665)
Published: 2026-09-10T12:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/thecaropopcast/3138313
Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/81118/3138313/thecaropopcast/2026_09_10_03_52_23_081005be-209c-4ae4-8ed0-191aa3b002ee.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/caropop-4326665/episodes/susan-orlean
Duration seconds: 3993

## Resource

Susan Orlean has a brilliant talent for crafting compelling narratives from idiosyncratic topics that have piqued her interest: orchid poachers in Florida for The Orchid Thief , a movie star dog for Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend and the Los Angeles Central Library for The Library Book , among others. Last year she shifted the focus to herself for a revealing, inspirational memoir, Joyride, that celebrates pursuing one’s curiosity into odd corners. Here Orlean, who preceded me at the Boston Phoenix by a few years, discusses when she knows a topic has reached critical mass to become a book, whether she does all of her reporting before she begins writing, how she decides how much of herself to put into a story, whether she can write whatever she wants now and how her life was affected by Meryl Streep portraying a fictionalized version of her in Adaptation . (Photo by Chloe Aftel.)

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## Transcript

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