Susan Orlins is author of Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and The Washington Post Magazine among other journals and anthologies. While an editor at Moment Magazine, she received a Rockower Award for her profile of sociolinguist Deborah Tannen. Orlins has performed storytelling at The Moth and Speakeasy D.C. and performs stand up comedy at clubs in Washington and New York. She facilitates writing and storytelling workshops for homeless writers in Washington, including at Street Sense, where she met author Gerald Anderson. Orlins is the mother of three grown daughters and lives with her dog in Washington, D.C.

  about Susan Orlins

about Gerald Anderson

Gerald Anderson dropped out of school in seventh grade. At age 15,
he served time in juvenile detention for stealing. Juvie provided his
introduction to drugs. Seven years later, in prison, he learned to read and write. He was 37 and had been on the street for three weeks before hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of the levees hit New Orleans. After helping rescue victims of the flooding and his evacuation to Washington, D.C., Anderson returned to drugs, burglary, and prison. In 2013, his fortune began to change when he learned he could earn money selling Street Sense, a newspaper written and sold by homeless vendors. That’s where he began writing his Katrina story with Street Sense editor Susan Orlins. Anderson lives with nine other men in a recovery home in Arlington, Virginia.