{"id":202721,"date":"2025-10-10T13:15:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T13:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202721\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T13:15:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T13:15:13","slug":"susan-orlean-on-her-new-book-joyride-curiosity-and-why-creativity-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202721\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Orlean on Her New Book \u2018Joyride,\u2019 Curiosity, and Why Creativity Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve called Susan Orlean to discuss creativity, but I can\u2019t stop staring at the poster-size playing card propped up behind her chair. The Queen of Hearts grimaces back at me while the legendary New Yorker staff writer\u2014and author of nine books, the latest of which is Joyride, out October 14\u2014basks in her glass room of curiosities. Her iconic red hair and berry-colored lipstick stand in stark contrast to the riot of vegetation behind her, kept at bay only by the floor-to-ceiling windows that separate her office from the wilderness outside. On the desk to her right are a book, a downy teddy bear, and a typewriter the shade of key lime pie.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve prepared for where this conversation will take us: I have, of course, read Orlean\u2019s work, scratching notes in the margins of her books and preparing my interview questions, all centering on a thought that\u2019s been rattling around my head lately: Is creativity a matter of urgency? Or is that the self-important notion of, say, a self-proclaimed creative? Still, when Orlean and I log off, I find myself distracted not by this question but by the contents of her house. All I\u2019ve seen of it is the office, the teddy bear, the glass. I want to see more.<\/p>\n

I click on several articles about the house<\/a>\u2014designed by the Austrian-born architect Rudolph Schindler in 1946 and hovering on a hilltop over the San Fernando Valley like a guardian angel\u2014and eventually land on a post from Orlean\u2019s Substack newsletter, Wordy Bird<\/a>. I dig deeper, scrolling through the archives to learn her thoughts on clothes<\/a>, earthquakes<\/a>, beauty<\/a>, and the smell of New York City<\/a> (a \u201cpizza-grease-and-roach-spray kind of bouquet\u201d). As my browser strains under the demands of my 30-plus open tabs, I realize I\u2019ve unintentionally completed a step in Orlean\u2019s creative process, one she calls \u201cthe oblique angle\u201d: When a person approaches the question at hand from \u201crelated but tangential places,\u201d tumbling down a rabbit hole. Orlean explains, \u201cYou may not use any of that material, but it is where you begin thinking more creatively, more imaginatively, more originally.\u201d And that, she argues, is when the most important work begins.<\/p>\n

Joyride is Orlean\u2019s first memoir and joins a growing canon of essay collections, craft books, self-improvement guides, and autobiographies that encourage a certain attitude toward creativity: not as obsolete in the face of evolving technologies, nor as an escape from more \u201cimportant\u201d matters\u2014but as a necessary tool to face them both. The hunger for these books is no new phenomenon. Perhaps the most obvious example of their continued relevance is the renewed popularity<\/a> of Julia Cameron\u2019s The Artist\u2019s Way. The 1992 treatise and workbook, which outlines exercises for sparking creativity\u2014and draws connections between the creative and the divine\u2014took off among those yearning for motivation in a fragmented, post-quarantine world. (Grammy-winning musician Doechii was one of several high-profile figures to attempt the book\u2019s \u201cmorning pages,\u201d documenting her progress on YouTube<\/a>.) In a world that prioritizes optimization over discovery and the artificial over the human, the hunger for creativity\u2014and the urgency around it\u2014only seems to be growing.
<\/p>\n

In 2025 alone, a whole stack of books on (or tangential to) this school of thought has been flooding the shelves. January welcomed the social scientist Martha Beck\u2019s Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life\u2019s Purpose; in the spring came Maggie Smith\u2019s Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life and Suleika Jaouad\u2019s The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life; artist and author Sally Mann\u2019s Art Work: On the Creative Life arrived in September; Sue Monk Kidd\u2019s Writing Creativity and Soul is out this month; and GG Renee Hill\u2019s Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative is set to drop in November. (And this is just a small sampling of the titles on offer.) These books vary in their focus, but as in Orlean\u2019s Joyride, the takeaway often has as much to do with the art of living as the art of writing. And when the art of living feels perhaps trickier than ever, creativity holds practical appeal.<\/p>\n

Joyride: A Memoir by Susan Orlean<\/p>\n

\"<i>Joyride:<\/a>Credit: Avid Reader Press\/Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little bit of a scolding attitude that says, \u2018Oh, creativity is something you do if you\u2019ve got the means and the luxury of time,\u2019\u201d Orlean tells me. She shrugs, shaking her head. \u201cI would disagree. The act of engaging is available to everybody, and it\u2019s not about having the financial freedom to screw around. Creativity is the most universally available commodity. It\u2019s about taking advantage of what\u2019s around you.\u201d It\u2019s not the sole terrain of writers, nor even of \u201ccreatives,\u201d she says. It\u2019s a way of \u201cengaging in life with an openness and curiosity that pushes beyond the conventional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyride is a memoir, but it is also a tribute to this philosophy, the driving force in Orlean\u2019s life. Compiled mostly in chronological order\u2014the first of her books to do so, Orlean adds\u2014the narrative follows Orlean\u2019s journey from her childhood in Cleveland to her first journalism jobs in Portland, Oregon, and Boston to her role at The New Yorker. We learn about her parents; about the breakdown of her first marriage; about her son and her second husband; and about her infamous 2020 drunken Twitter tirade<\/a>, after which she anointed herself the \u201cpatron saint of pandemic drinking.\u201d Along the way, she unpacks the stories behind her major stories: \u201cThe American Man at Age Ten\u201d<\/a> in Esquire; \u201cBe a Joke Unto Yourself\u201d in The Village Voice; and her books, including Saturday Night, Rin Tin Tin, The Library Book, and The Orchid Thief, which was transformed into the acclaimed film Adaptation in 2002. Although these peeks behind the curtain are interesting on their own merits, it\u2019s Orlean\u2019s sense of mission that propels the reader along.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe act of engaging is available to everybody, and it\u2019s not about having the financial freedom to screw around. Creativity is the most universally available commodity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting is the most meaningful thing I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d she says in the early pages of Joyride. \u201cI wanted to be a writer because I wanted to show that any life closely examined is complex and exceptional and can embody both the heroic and the plain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClose examination\u201d is perhaps the sole common denominator across Orlean\u2019s wide-ranging body of work, and it\u2019s such examination she fears might be lost in our over-optimized modern era. She admits that Joyride succumbs to nostalgia for the halcyon days of magazine journalism, in which a reporter like herself could spend days circling the mere scent of a story. Over the decades of Orlean\u2019s career, time and financial constraints have squeezed once-ample reporting resources. At the same time, tech\u2014smartphones, social media, artificial intelligence\u2014has transformed our information ecosystem, making our steps within it less certain. How, then, do we continue to explore? Orlean wonders. And, equally important, how do we remind all people (not only \u201ccreatives\u201d) that exploration is a matter of import? Even urgency?<\/p>\n

\"susangetty images<\/p>\n

Orlean on the runway at the Susan Alexandra x Rachel Antonoff Dog Show during New York Fashion Week in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Orlean is not a technophobe, she says, nor an anti-AI purist. She uses ChatGPT, though mainly for \u201cchores,\u201d like finding a local appliance technician or planning a trip. She does not use generative AI for story research or in any of her writing. She understands the technology\u2019s capacities well enough to recognize its power to remove humans from primary sources, the journalist\u2019s equivalent of \u201ctouching grass.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re in this inflection point where the way we were creative in the past, we have to come up with a new way,\u201d Orlean says. \u201cI refuse to believe that we are now going to be in an era of no creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Her solution, then, is to treat creativity not as a luxury, nor as this \u201cwispy, unmanageable thing that you don\u2019t dare think about because you might bring it crashing down to earth.\u201d Creativity is a human necessity, she believes, and thus should be treated as practical\u2014and given a pragmatic approach. \u201cThe best thing you can do is to be analytical and even mechanical about it,\u201d she recommends. She sets a daily word count when she\u2019s working on a project, which she likens to exercise: \u201cWhen I was a runner, I would never just \u2018go for a run.\u2019 I would say, \u2018I\u2019m going to do eight miles.\u2019 And at the four-mile mark, I would think, \u2018I\u2019m halfway done.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t have done it without that framework.\u201d She has the same approach to her creative process: \u201cI punch the clock, and then I can be as free as I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although books like The Artist\u2019s Way, The Book of Alchemy, and Art Work might or might not phrase their advice in the same way, their arguments are similar: Creativity is an action, one that works best as part of a routine. The tips inside these books have as much to do with functionality as philosophy: Locate a special spot in which to work. Fill your space with curiosities\u2014books, mementos, maybe a life-size playing card. Write ideas down, on actual paper. Set a timer or a deadline. Ask questions. Listen. Engage. Do the same thing tomorrow, and then the next day, and the day after that. Treat the creative practice as precious, necessary, even sacred\u2014because it is. \u201cPeople often make the mistake of believing that having a process will deflate their creativity,\u201d Orlean says. \u201cTo me, process liberates creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

More Books About the Creative Life\"<i>The<\/a>The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron<\/p>\n

Now 37% Off<\/p>\n

Credit: Tarcher\"<i>The<\/a>The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin<\/p>\n

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Credit: Penguin Press\"<i>Beyond<\/a>Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life\u2019s Purpose by Martha Beck<\/p>\n

Now 49% Off<\/p>\n

Credit: The Open Field\"<i>We<\/a>We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something by Amie McNee<\/p>\n

Now 39% Off<\/p>\n

Credit: Penguin Life\"<i>Dear<\/a>Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith<\/p>\n

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Credit: Washington Square Press\"<i>The<\/a>The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad<\/p>\n

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Credit: Random House\"<i>Art<\/a>Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally MannCredit: Harry N. Abrams\"<i>Writing<\/a>Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk KiddCredit: Knopf\"<i>Story<\/a>Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative by GG Renee HillCredit: Broadleaf Books<\/p>\n

A version of this story appears in the September 2025 issue of ELLE.<\/p>\n

GET THE LATEST ISSUE OF ELLE<\/a>
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