Stephen Orr

Stephen Orr (born 1967) is an Australian writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction. He has also adapted one of his novels for screen, and written a play. His works are set in uniquely Australian settings, including coastal towns, outback regions, and the Australian suburbs. His fiction explores the dynamics of Australian families and communities.

Early life and education Stephen Orr was born in 1967 in the Adelaide suburb of Hillcrest, South Australia, later reimagined as Gleneagles in his 2019 novel This Excellent Machine.

He attended Gilles Plains Primary School in Hillcrest and Gilles Plains High School in Windsor Gardens (now amalgamated to form Avenues College.

Orr completed a science degree at the University of Adelaide before studying one year of a music composition degree and a graduate diploma in education.

Career Early career In May 1993, Orr was musical director of a production titled Nunsense, described as "an irreverant musical send-up of nuns on the run", presented by the Therry Dramatic Society Inc. at the Royalty Theatre in Adelaide.

Orr began his teaching career at Hervey Bay State High School in 1996.

Writing Articles Orr has written widely on issues such as nature, education, writers, and the art of writing. He was a long-time contributor to The Adelaide Review from 2008 until its final issue in October 2020. His long-form essay "Ambassadors from Another Time" was published in the Australian Book Review in October 2017.

He has also written for The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald / The Age, The Australian, The Canberra Times, Brisbane Times, WAtoday, Crikey, InDaily, Meanjin, The Adelaide Review, Good Reading, and other Australian newspapers and journals.

Fiction Orr's first novel, Attempts to Draw Jesus, was originally written by him as a play. It was runner-up in The Australian/Vogel Literary Award and was published in 2002. His second novel, Hill of Grace, a portrait of a 1950s Barossa Valley religious cult awaiting the rapture, was released in 2004.

In 2010 he published Time's Long Ruin, a fictional study of grief following the disappearance of three children in 1960s Adelaide, loosely based on the Beaumont children. was a re-imagining of the lives of Australian composer Percy Grainger and his mother Rose. In the same year, his large scale 'play for voices' Westward Ho! was performed by a cast of international actors at the 2021 Adelaide Fringe Festival under the direction of Guy Masterson. His 2014 venture into crime writing, One Boy Missing, described the discovery of a lost boy in a small outback town, and the subsequent search for the cause of his trauma.

The Hands (2015)

Incredible Floridas (2017) is loosely based on the relationship between Australian artist Russell Drysdale and his son Tim. His most recent books include a collection of outback stories (The Fierce Country, 2018), the semi-autobiographical novel This Excellent Machine (2019), a riff on the 1944 Ern Malley literary hoax (Sincerely, Ethel Malley, 2021) as well as a second collection of stories, The Boy in Time (2022).

In 2021, concerned about a lack of engaging books for boys in his classes, he wrote and published The Lanternist, an Edwardian adventure story with illustrations by Timothy Ide.

His 2024 novel Shining Like the Sun (with a title based on a quote by Thomas Merton) explores the life of an old man trying to hold his family (and small town) together in the face of unalterable changes.

The Night Parrots (2026) describes the 1922 Central Australian journey of Pastor Martin Gerlach, his wife Alma and son Theo, in search of urgent medical care. The story was suggested by the final journey of Pastor Carl Strehlow, as recounted in his son Ted Strehlow's 1969 book Journey to Horseshoe Bend, and, according to the author is primarily "the story of a father and a son". The title refers to a critically endangered Australian bird species, the night parrot. Orr uses it as a metaphor, according to reviewer Ben Adams, "symbolising the power of belief in fragile, perhaps imagined things which can nevertheless allow people 'to feel secure'."

Adaptations In July 2015, an opera titled Innocence was produced by SINGular Productions and presented by the State Opera of South Australia at the State Opera Studio in Netley, SA. The libretto was written by Adam Goodburn and Anne Cawrse, based on Orr's 2010 novel Time's Long Ruin.

Critical reception In a 2021 review of Orr's Sincerely, Ethel Malley, the author and critic Michael McGirr wrote that Orr "is a prolific writer and his work is characterised by a methodical ability to deal with issues of substance. His writing has the energy required to sustain long narratives but is never histrionic".

Recognition and awards Orr's first novel, Attempts to Draw Jesus (2002) was runner-up in The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.

He has also been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award.

Footnotes