Susan Orlean on Our Collective Desire For a Little Levity Right Now

Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic.

Today on episode 90 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber and writer Susan Orlean chat about her recent article in The New Yorker on a viral outbreak affecting rabbits and its strange parallels with our own pandemic. Paul and Susan’s conversation touches on Susan’s curiosity as a writer, traveling across the country during a pandemic, and the current closure of libraries. The conversation then turns to Susan’s recent viral tweets, and our desire for levity in this moment.

To listen to the episode, as well as the whole archive of The Quarantine Tapes, subscribe and listen on iTunes or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts.

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Susan Orlean is the author of eight books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and Lazy Little Loafers. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film, Adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, and has also contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Outside, and Esquire. She has written about taxidermy, fashion, umbrellas, origami, dogs, chickens, and a wide range of other subjects. She was a 2003 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. She is currently adapting The Library Book for television. She lives with her husband and son in Los Angeles.