Author Susan Orlean delivers the annual Johnston Lecture to a full house on campus in the Gerlinger Lounge.

Following the public lecture, Orlean conducted a three-day workshop called “Writing About American Life” with students of the SOJC Literary Nonfiction program.

Orlean is well known for her ability to find stories in often- overlooked subcultures—surfer girls, the dog show world, and the average 10-year-old boy, jus tfor starters—as well as for her signature writing style. “Susan Orlean is a mistress of the impossible to ignore lead. The hook that truly hooks,” said Professor Lauren Kessler in introducing Orlean.

Before becoming a staff writer for The New Yorker in 1992, Orlean free-lanced with publications such as Rolling Stone, Vogue and Esquire. She then worked as a feature writer for The Boston Globe. Orlean has published three nonfiction books. Her second, The Orchid Thief, is currently being made into a movie starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.

"I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had people say to me, ‘Why would you want to talk to me?’ … in fact I want to talk to them, I think they’re interesting." -- Susan Orlean

In the lecture, Orlean said she feels the ethical need to look for the extraordinary in a story, rather than that which patronizes the subject. “There’s no question in my mind that being a writer is a moral occupation and one that requires an awareness all the time of what that means morally and philosophically,” said Orlean.

Orlean credited much of her current view of the reasons for writing and the inherent responsibilities to her membership in “celebrity writers anonymous.” Early in her career, she found failings with writing about the famous and celebrated. “It is often the case that you become seduced by the idea that you’ve actually seen something real,” she said.

When she tired of what she called “participating in publicity” by writing traditional celebrity profiles, she found ways to convince editors to let her write about the extraordinary in the ordinary. Even when her editors agree, interview subjects are often hesitant or incredulous. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had people say to me, ‘Why would you want to talk to me?’ I have to insist that in fact I want to talk to them; I think they’re interesting,” she said.

When Orlean approaches “ordinary” people or even those who are already famous, she said she is often looking for a specific type of person. “I’m particularly interested in the tiny master, the person who has a tiny domain of which they are completely the master,” she said. “It seems to me that that’s at the very center of the human experience, that our happiness generally comes from figuring out what that little domain is that we master.”

Susan Orlean’s latest book, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters With Extraordinary People, is a collection of previously published profiles, most of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Orlean has published two previous nonfiction books, Saturday Night, a look at how people across America spend their Saturday nights, and The Orchid Thief, an immersion into the quirky world of orchid collecting. She is currently at work on a fourth book about Harlem and gospel music.

The Johnston Lecture is held annually in honor of Richard W. Johnston ’36, an acclaimed writer, editor and war correspondent. His career spanned from 18-year-old sports editor of The Register-Guard to executive editor of Sports Illustrated. The lecture is part of the Johnston project in the SOJC, which brings professional writers and editors to campus for workshops, lectures and discussion with faculty, students and members of the community.