Greater Capital Region Teacher Center

Susan Orlean (photo: courtesy of The New Yorker)

December 9, 2003 (Tuesday) 4:15 p.m. Informal Seminar Assembly Hall, CC 8:00 p.m. Reading Recital Hall, PAC UAlbany, Uptown Campus

Susan Orlean became a staff writer for The New Yorker in 1992. She had been contributing both signed articles and "Talk of the Town" pieces since 1987.

Ms. Orlean has written more than fifty "Talk of the Town" pieces, as well as "Profiles and Reporter at Large" articles, and is currently writing a series of American popular culture columns, called Popular Chronicles. The Chronicles thus far have included subjects such as an article on designer Bill Blass, Harlem high school basketball star Felipe Lopez, the friends and neighbors of Tonya Harding, and D.J. Red Alert, a hip-hop radio star in New York.

Prior to joining The New Yorker, Ms. Orlean was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and also at Vogue, where she wrote on numerous figures in both the music and fashion industries. Previously, she had been a columnist, first for the Boston Phoenix, and then for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. She has also written for The New York Times Magazine, Spy, Esquire and Outside.

Ms. Orlean has written several books, including, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Ordinary People, a collection of stories which was released in January 2001; Red Sox and Blue Fish (1989), a compilation of columns she wrote for the Globe Sunday Magazine; Saturday Night (1990), a journal of essays which chronicle the Saturday nights she spent in communities across the country; and The Orchid Thief, (1999) a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida. The Orchid Thief has been made into the movie, Adaptation written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.

Ms. Orlean received her B.A. with honors from the University of Michigan in 1976. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and dog, Cooper. Cooper Gillespie has just published his first book of recipes.