Curiosity as Compassion: A Conversation with Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992. There, she’s published a plethora of in-depth features and profiles on subjects you didn’t know would fascinate you, until her boundless curiosity pins you to the page.
Orlean is the author of eight books. Most recently, she’s published a memoir, Joyride, in which she goes behind the scenes of her books and magazine articles to tell us the stories behind how they came to be. (It’s a five-star read worth your time.) She recently sat down with Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, to talk about the surprising reader response she’s seen to Joyride, the importance of resilience and curiosity, and what she views as her mission as a writer.
This conversation was lightly edited for pacing and flow.
—Krista Stevens
Brendan: Your new memoir, Joyride, has been out for a little while now. What’s surprised you most about how readers have responded?
Susan: It’s really been interesting how many nonwriters have responded to it. It certainly is a book that I assumed writers would most respond to, but it’s been really interesting to see that it’s much more. It can be applied to many different lives in a way that I hadn’t expected, and that’s really been great. I think a lot of the response has been to the idea of resilience, of making your own way and bouncing back when discouragement has been there, and that’s a universal that doesn’t require being a writer to respond to. I’ve definitely had people react to that aspect of the book.