Council Literary Series: Susan Orlean
11am | Reception
11:30am | Author Program
12:30pm | Lunch and Book Signing
Beverly Hills Women’s Club (1700 Chevy Chase Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210)
Parking Information
Guests may find unrestricted street parking on Chevy Chase Drive, Roxbury Drive, and Angelo Drive. Limited attended parking will be available via the alley off Benedict Cañon Drive, just south of Chevy Chase Drive and just north of Roxbury Drive.
Dress Code
Business attire is requested.
If you have any questions, please email The Council office at thecouncil@lfla.org or call 213.228.7506.
Our Guest Author:
Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean is the author of nine books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and On Animals. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film “Adaptation” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Her book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend won the Ohioana Book Award and the Richard Wall Memorial Award. In 2018, she published The Library Book, about the arson fire at the Central Library. It won the California Book Award and the Marfield Prize and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. It is being adapted for television. Her 2025 memoir, Joyride, has been cited as one of the best books of the year by multiple sources including Kirkus and NPR.
Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Outside, and Esquire. She wrote for the second season of HBO’s How To With John Wilson and was nominated for an Emmy for the episode “How to Appreciate Wine”. She was a 2003 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Los Angeles.
About the Book:
Joyride
“The story of my life is the story of my stories,” writes Susan Orlean in this memoir. Joyride is a ride through Orlean’s life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity draws her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile (“The American Man Age Ten”) to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji.
Not only does Orlean’s account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it’s also an essential and practical guide to embracing any creative path. She takes us through her process of dreaming up ideas, managing deadlines, connecting with sources, chasing every possible lead, confronting writer’s block and self-doubt, and crafting the perfect lede—a Susan specialty.
Praise
“Readers will love it; writers will learn from it . . . Orlean’s anecdotes sing with the pleasure of a person born to her passion and purpose.”
—Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
“An ebullient, frank, moving, and inspiring memoir. . . Orlean is always superbly good literary company, and here she deepens the intimacy, welcoming readers into the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of an exemplary and empathetic writer.”
—Booklist
