""The stories that are most rewarding are often the ones that really fill you with a cold dread as you begin, because you're inventing something that doesn't lean into a template," the New Yorker staff writer tells Bustle. "It requires a lot more imagination, and I think it's perfectly natural to stop and think 'I could have just done this the easy way. Why didn't I?'""
""I'm at a point where I've been doing this for a long time, and I found my very comfortable perch within it. But I think it's exciting and fun to stretch and try these other things," says Orlean, 69. "They make me feel like a beginner again: a little challenged, a little scared. I think it's actually very enlivening and exciting to say 'Here's something I don't really know how to do, so I'm going to have to learn.'""
A veteran nonfiction figure revisits a long-running impulse toward obsessive, unconventional subjects and the refusal to follow templates. She traces a career from The Orchid Thief's orchid-collecting history to profiles that became film adaptations, and to surprising editorial choices like passing on celebrity pieces for ordinary subjects. Recent moves include television staff work and launching a Substack, undertaken to feel like a beginner and to embrace challenges. The creative trajectory emphasizes seeking imagination-heavy projects, avoiding easy templates, and finding renewal by learning new forms late in career.
Read at Bustle
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