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Susan Orlean

What's happening with Susan?

This page is for letting you know about my goings-on: appearances, interviews, and news.

 

The Front Page News

Paperback

Paperback news! The paperback edition of RIN TIN TIN will be published on October 9, 2012. It's got a gorgeous new cover, a readers' guide, and a q&a with me. I'm really excited. I'm doing a mini-tour to coincide with the publication (check the calendar for dates) and popping champagne.

If your book group is reading RIN TIN TIN, I have a proposal for you: I'll try to visit with you via Skype for a q&a. Just contact me via the "contact me" button here and let me know who you are and where you are and when you're reading it, and we'll go from there.

 
SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED

I’ve covered four corners of the country on my book tour, but there have been plenty of places I haven’t been able to go. So I’ve decided to do a virtual book-signing for those of you who’d like signed and/or personalized copies of RIN TIN TIN.

If you already have a copy or prefer buying it at your local store, mail it (or send via UPS or FEDEX) with a self-addressed, prepaid return envelope and a note telling me how you’d like it inscribed to

SUSAN ORLEAN
c/o WORD MONKEY
3940 Laurel Canyon Blvd. #252
Studio City CA 91604

Otherwise, you can buy one from me directly via the Paypal button below. Once you hit the "buy now" button, you can pay with a credit card or a Paypal account. You will specify how you'd like your book signed (i.e., "Just your signature" or "For Uncle Bob, a dog lover") after you enter your payment information. (There will be a place where you'll hit "add" to your order; you will then have a text box saying "How would you like your book signed?" The price for the book is $29, which includes USPS Priority Mail shipping. I will try to get these out as quickly as possible, in time for the holidays. If you are buying more than one copy, make it clear how you want each copy signed. If you want more than four copies -- and I love you for that! -- the shipping becomes more complicated, so please contact me directly via the "contact me" button on my website. I'm happy to be able to do this! I have a limited number of books, so do order soon. Only domestic US shipping, please.

Here's the button!







 
Book tour

Thank goodness I just bought new luggage, because this book tour might just kill me. But I am so excited to take Rin Tin Tin out in the world (and can't help but be reminded of the strange parallel with Lee Duncan, who took the real Rin Tin Tin out on the road many times...). Here's the line-up so far. More dates will be added, and I'll refresh this list as that happens. I hope you can join me! Many of these dates will include a screening of "Clash of the Wolves" as well as a reading and talk and Q&A and book signing. Many theaters are having live music to accompany the film -- it'll be wonderful. Please come! For direct links to the websites for tickets and more information, check the calendar to the right.

October 1, 2011 – Los Angeles, CA
AMERICAN HUMANE HERO DOG AWARDS, Beverly Wilshire
5:30 pm local time reception, 7:00 pm local time event begins

October 4, 2011 – New York, NY
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
6:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing LIVE MUSIC!

October 6, 2011 – New York, NY
PALEY CENTER NEW YORK
6:30 pm local time – conversation with David Carr/screening/Q&A/signing
We'll be screening clips from "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin" as well as some never-before-seen footage of Bert Leonard.

October 8, 2011 – Chicago, IL
CHICAGO MUSIC BOX THEATER
5:30 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 9, 2011 – San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY
7:30 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 12, 2011 – Los Angeles, CA
PALEY CENTER LOS ANGELES
7:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 17, 2011 – Detroit, MI
DETROIT BOOK & AUTHOR LUNCHEON
12:00 noon local time – talk/Q&A/signing

October 18, 2011 – Ann Arbor, MI
MICHIGAN THEATER
7:30 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 20, 2011 – Iowa City, IA
ENGLERT THEATER
8 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 21-22, 2011 – Austin, TX
TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL
October 21, 6:00 pm local time, Gala at the Four Seasons, reception/talk/signing
October 22, 12:30 pm local time, talk/Q&A/signing at the House Chamber
October 22, 8:00 pm local time, Lit Crawl at the Blue Starlite Drive-In

October 23, 2011 – Mesilla, NM
MESILLA VALLEY FILM SOCIETY
7:30 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 27, 2011 – Portland, OR
HOLLYWOOD THEATRE
7:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

October 28, 2011 – Seattle, WA
SIFF FILM CENTER
7:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 2, 2011 – Los Angeles, CA
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
7:00 pm local time – moderated talk/Q&A/signing

November 3, 2011 – Riverside, CA
RIVERSIDE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
5:00 pm local time – talk/Q&A/signing

November 6, 2011 – San Diego, CA
LAWRENCE FAMILY JCC
12:00 noon local time – talk/Q&A/signing

November 7, 2011 – New York, NY
NYU SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
7:00 pm local time – unticketed talk/Q&A/signing

November 8, 2011 – Stamford, CT
AVON THEATER
7:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 9, 2011 – Pleasantville, NY
JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER
7:30 pm local time – moderated conversation/screening/Q&A/signing

November 10, 2011 – New York, NY
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
12:30 pm local time – “Live at NYPL” Friends Luncheon

November 12, 2011 – Washington, DC
AFI SILVER THEATRE
3 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 13, 2011 – Cleveland, OH
CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART
1:30 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 15, 2011 – Winona, MN
FROZEN RIVER FILM FESTIVAL
Time TBD – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 16, 2011 – St. Paul, MN
ST. PAUL JCC
7:00 pm local time – talk/Q&A/signing

November 18, 2011 – St. Louis, MO
ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
7:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

November 19-20, 2011 – Miami, FL
MIAMI BOOK FAIR INTERNATIONAL
Date and time TBD – talk/Q&A/signing

November 21, 2011 – Key West, FL
TROPIC CINEMA
3:00 pm local time – talk/screening/Q&A/signing

December 5, 2011 – Philadelphia, PA
FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA
7:30 pm local time – moderated talk/Q&A/signing

December 15, 2011
PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL @ UC-RIVERSIDE

 
Booklist review

Just got this review in Booklist for RIN TIN TIN and I'm ECSTATIC! Here's the text:

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.

Oct 2011. 288 p. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $26.99. (9781439190135). 790.
Rin Tin Tin, the smart, athletic German shepherd who became “the archetypal dog hero,” was born on a battlefield in France in 1918 and rescued by Lee Duncan, an American soldier. Duncan, whose love for animals was rooted in a childhood of abandonment, brought Rin Tin Tin to California, where diligent training, talent, and luck turned “Rinty” into a universally beloved movie star. The Rin Tin Tin character lived on after the original dog’s death in 1932 (the world mourned) as Duncan, utterly devoted to his creation, worked with a series of German shepherds to keep Rin Tin Tin in the movies and on television for nearly four more decades. In her first from-scratch investigative book since The Orchid Thief (1999), New Yorker staff writer Orlean incisively chronicles every facet of the never-before-told, surprisingly consequential, and roller-coaster–like Rin Tin Tin saga, including the rapid evolution of the film and television industries, the rise of American pet culture, how Americans heeded the military’s call and sent their dogs into combat during WWII, and even what the courageous canine meant to her own family.

Orlean’s engrossing, dynamic, and affecting biography of a dog who became an icon of loyalty and valor will reignite Rin Tin Tin fever in yet another time when heroes are in acute demand.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Move over Seabiscuit, Rin Tin Tin will be the most-talked-about animal hero of the year and beyond as best-selling Orlean presents a spectacularly compelling portrait.
— Donna Seaman

 
More news...

Catch Me if You Can

Follow me on the road -- or better yet, stop by and say hi! Click on the event for more info.

 
 

Talk, Talk

How I Travel

How I travel (besides with a too-full suitcase) is, for me, an irresistible topic, since I approach it exactly the way I approach stories. I like surprise, enterprise, mishap (without dire outcome); I like being shaken out of the ordinary and yet I also like to explore the ordinary. I like fresh experience. I loved talking to Steve Bramucci of Bootsnall, a travel network, about journeys without a map. Our conversation is here at Bootsnall, with photographs courtesy of my iPhone.

 
Nieman lab

According to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, I am a queen -- or at least, I am a Twitter queen. In an interview with Megan Garber of the Nieman Lab, I talk about how and why I tweet, and how it does or doesn't help longer-form writing. Take a look at Nieman Lab and follow me at susanorlean on Twitter for real-life examples of what I'm talking about in the Q&A.

 
Atlantic Wire

I tallied up my reading habits here recently for The Atlantic Wire, the website of the Atlantic Magazine. I'm honestly shocked by how quickly I've moved from newspaper and magazine to iPhone and Internet. Where will this end up, I wonder? It's happening so quickly -- the move to electronic publishing, that is -- that I think the landscape will be different a year from now, and vastly different five years from now. In the meantime, though, I'll just keep writing and reading, whatever form it's in.

 
More bloggingheads!

I had a great time talking to Walter Kirn, author of "Up in the Air"; we compared the slightly surreal out-of-body experience of having one's written work transformed into a movie. You can watch the whole thing here:

 
More interviews...