Wordy Bird

Articles

A Weird Week

1 week ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

Last week was a weird one. Just being in Los Angeles was weird. The news made it sound as if the city was convulsed with violence, descending into chaos. I got lots of worried texts from friends, and had to assure them that this was, ahem, fake news in the most part.
A Matter of Pride

3 weeks ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

I wanted to write a Pride-adjacent post in honor of Pride Month and also to register my horror at the prospect of un-naming the USS Harvey Milk. For crying out loud, can you believe that one? The pettiness, the anti-woke signaling… stop me before I burst a valve. On a happier note, I went to a screening the other night of the new National Geographic documentary Sally, which is a fantastic film about astronaut Sally Ride.
Friday On My Mind

4 weeks ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

Happy Friday, everyone, at the end of a holiday week during which I couldn’t remember the day of the week (the curse of Monday holidays), which followed a week when I returned from an overseas trip on Monday, which meant not only being mixed up about the day of the week but being jet-lagged. I’m still writing 2024 on my checks, too. Ok, enough: Thank you for listening to me whine. Wordy Bird is a reader-supported publication.
Keeping My Cool

1 month ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

I fancy myself an unflappable speaker. I give lectures and talks all the time, and I simply don’t get rattled by it. I think I’m just missing that gene, or hormone, or nerve system that gets jiggled by standing in front of a group of people; thank goodness, since being a writer these days demands at least a little bit of public performance.
Sweet Smell of Buffalo

1 month ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

I’m in Buffalo, New York, to give a talk at the annual fundraiser for the Buffalo & Erie County library system. On my flight here, I read that Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress for the past ten years and the first accredited librarian, first African American, and first woman to hold the post, had been booted out of her job by Donald Trump with no explanation and nothing more than a curt email telling her to clear her desk. I met Dr. Hayden a few years ago.
Digging the Contents of This Box

1 month ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

We love us some galleys...aka ARCs or Advance Reading Copies -- judging on which term you use helps establish how long you've been in book publishing. :)
Crybaby

1 month ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

I got the horrible news yesterday that my friend Jill Sobule had died. You may recognize her name: She was a singer/songwriter who first popped into the public eye with her song “I Kissed a Girl” and continued producing lively, lovely music for decades. She was a person for whom the word “delightful” was invented. She was goofy, smart, playful, humble, generous. She wrote the theme song for my podcast “Crybabies” and it was just brilliant.
How to Be Chill

1 month ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

Spring in Los Angeles begins around January 1st, or at least it feels that way. Oddly, though, it’s been chilly lately—the cold snap timed exactly to the minute of when I bundled up my wool sweaters and packed them in mothproof bags for their long summery slumber. It got so cold that I had to fish a few out to use during this last unseasonable spell. Wordy Bird is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Apologies!!!

2 months ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

Hey folks! Someone has created a fake account with my name and is spamming my followers with investment opportunities. I’ve contacted Substack to see how to get the account taken down. In the meantime, please ignore/delete/throw bricks at it, and I hope it’ll be dealt with soon.
Writing is a Nightmarish Hellscape

2 months ago | susanorlean.substack.com | Susan Orlean

When it comes to writing, I have performance anxiety. I know this seems strange; after all, I’ve been writing for decades, and by all measure I should feel a bit of swagger every time I sit down to start a piece. Practice makes perfect and all that, right? But each time it’s a bit of a challenge to convince myself that I’m going to pull it off.