Orlean reveals her secrets for success

Susan Orlean bets you’ll find orchids, a 10-year-old boy and a street vendor interesting…. Susan Orlean bets you’ll find orchids, a 10-year-old boy and a street vendor interesting. She’s not conceited; she’s just a contrarian writer who has had immense success by writing about the ordinary in creative and fresh ways.

On Monday night, Pittsburgh Arts ‘ Lectures hosted author Susan Orlean in Carnegie Music Hall as part of the fall Drue Heinz Lecture Series.

Orlean entered the stage in a spirited fashion, wearing a black shirt, tall black boots and a red-and-white skirt that accented her red, shoulder-length hair. As she spoke, Orlean not once succumbed to that public speaking no-no: leaning against the podium.

At the event, Orlean read sections from her celebrated 1999 nonfiction work “The Orchid Thief” and published profiles, weaving the readings with her personal thoughts about her career and the writing process that has taken her to a most fearful place: Florida’s impossible-to-navigate swampland.

Susan Orlean is probably best known for “The Orchid Thief,” which explores the obsession that led John Laroche to steal wild, protected orchids from the Fakahatchee swampland in south Florida. In case you didn’t know, some endangered and rare species of orchids enjoy the same protections that endangered animals do, Orlean explained. Basically that means if you are caught stealing an orchid from Fakahatchee, you will be apprehended and tried in a court of law.

The book, recast into the 2002 film “Adaptation” starring Meryl Streep as Orlean, garnered enormous respect from critics, orchid collectors and even people who thought they would never read a book about orchids or find one so fascinating. For Orlean, receiving compliments from that latter group is a true mark of success.

Orlean expounded on the processes that compel writers to go all-out for a story. “When you’re a reporter, you do things you would never do if left to your own devices just because, at that moment, the story carries you,” Orlean said, describing how she never thought she would go waist-deep in an alligator, mosquito, you-name-it infested swamp for “The Orchid Thief,” let alone five times.

Her writing contains a mixture of the objective and subjective with a touch of Orlean-style humor, always delicately placed like an unexpected tickle. Her writing is a prime example of modern creative nonfiction that permits and even encourages the author to place him or herself into the narrative, showing the readers that a real person lies behind the words. It is precisely for this reason – her voice – that many readers keep coming back to Orlean’s work.

From the chapter “The Good Life,” Orlean read: “When I got back to New York everyone I talked to about the hike asked what I wore