I’m the product of a happy and uneventful childhood in the suburbs of Cleveland, followed by a happy and pretty eventful four years as a student at the University of Michigan. From there, I wandered to the West Coast, landing in Portland, Oregon, where I managed (somehow) to get a job as a writer. This had been my dream, of course, but I had no experience and no credentials. What I did have, in spades, was an abiding passion for storytelling and sentence-making. I fell in love with the experience of writing, and I’ve never stopped. From Portland, I moved to Boston, where I wrote for the Phoenix and the Globe, and then to New York, where I began writing for magazines, and, in 1987, published my first piece in The New Yorker. I’ve been a staff writer there since 1992.
Books in order of publication:
Gardening Books
| The Orchid Thief | (1998) | |
| The Floral Ghost | (2016) |
Animal Books
| Animalish | (2011) | |
| Rin Tin Tin | (2011) | |
| On Animals | (2021) |
History Books
| Red Sox and Bluefish and Other Things That Make New England New England | (1987) | |
| Saturday Night | (1990) | |
| The American Man at Age 10 | (1992) |
Library Science Books
| The Library Book | (2018) |
Biographies Books
| The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People | (2001) | |
| My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere | (2004) | |
| A Gentle Reign | (2016) |
Children’s Books
| Lazy Little Loafers | (2008) |
Short Stories/Novellas
| You Are Ready For Takeoff: A Short Trip | (2021) |
Anthologies
| Life Stories | (2000) | |
| The Thong Also Rises: Further Misadventures from Funny Women on the Road | (2005) | |
| The Best American Essays 2005 | (2005) | |
| Secret Ingredients | (2007) | |
| Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing | (2014) |
Oak Lawn Library Friends 