A conversation with Susan Orlean

Name: A conversation with Susan Orlean
Start: 2025-10-22T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-22T20:00:00-04:00
Location: 2121 Snow Road, Parma, OH 44134

Schedule

Wed Oct 22 2025 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

2121 Snow Road, Parma, OH 44134 | Parma, OH

🎫 TICKETED EVENT: $30 + fees 🎫
Each ticket ($30 +fees) includes a seat at the author’s talk, a copy of Joyride, and a donation to the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation.
Join us at our Parma-Snow Branch for a conversation with Susan Orlean, author of "Joyride."
Get tickets: https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/13647560
Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including "The Library Book," "Rin Tin Tin," "Saturday Night," and "The Orchid Thief," which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in Los Angeles.
“The story of my life is the story of my stories,” writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. Joyride is a magic carpet 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.
While Orlean has always written her way into other people’s lives in order to understand the human experience, Joyride is her most personal book ever—a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work including Adaptation and Blue Crush, and confronting mortality. Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean’s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour, Sonny Mehta, and Jonathan Karp—forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today.
Infused with Orlean’s signature warmth and wit, "Joyride" is a must-read for anyone who hungers to start, build, and sustain a creative life. Orlean inspires us to seek out daily inspiration and rediscover the marvels that surround us.
FAQs
📕 Additional books will be available for purchase courtesy of Mac’s Backs – Books on Coventry.
For questions about accessibility or to request accommodations for individuals with hearing, visual or mobility impairments, please email [email protected].
NO REFUNDS. If you are unable to attend the event, please contact [email protected] to claim the book(s) included with your ticket purchase and schedule pick up from the CCPL branch of your choice. Books not claimed within 7 days of the event will be donated to the Library.
Questions? Email us at [email protected].