Susan Orlean
Long-form narrative journalism found a prominent place in American literary culture during the latter decades of the twentieth century, as writers turned their craft toward reported prose that moved between fact and close observation. Susan Orlean, born on October 31, 1955, in Cleveland, Ohio, built her career within this tradition as a journalist and writer working in the English language.
Orlean was educated at Shaker Heights High School and subsequently studied at the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She later received education at Harvard University as well. These institutions formed the academic foundation from which she pursued work as both a journalist and a writer, two occupations she held as a citizen of the United States contributing to American nonfiction over the course of her career.
The recognition Orlean received from her peers and from institutional bodies reflects the standing her work achieved. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a honor that placed her among other writers and scholars who had been similarly recognized. That fellowship stands as the most concrete marker of formal acknowledgment in the record of her career, anchoring her place within a professional community that valued her contributions as a journalist and writer.
Quotes by Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean's insights on:
The first thing I think about when I wake up most mornings is the fact that I'm tired. I have been tired for decades. I am tired in the morning and I am tired while becalmed in the slough of the afternoon, and I am tired in the evening, except right when I try to go to sleep.
Once words and thoughts are poured into them, books are no longer just paper and ink and glue: They take on a kind of human vitality.
I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of ‘student-athletes.’ I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don’t believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that’s another story.
Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn’t, but they do, and a lot.
I had never considered using a hashtag anywhere other than on Twitter, but now I’m inspired. Text messages have always seemed a little flat to me, so the murmuring Greek chorus of a hashtag might be a perfect way to liven them up and give them a bit of dimension.
Even after I’d published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.
According to a 2010 study, almost three hundred million Americans used one of the country’s 17,078 public libraries and bookmobiles in the course of the year.
The Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books during their twelve years in power.
The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.