Stephen Orr

Stephen Orr was born in the Adelaide suburb of Hillcrest, South Australia, later reimagined as Gleneagles in his 2019 novel This Excellent Machine. He attended Gilles Plains High School (now Avenues College). He completed a science degree at the University of Adelaide before studying one year of a music composition degree and a graduate diploma in education. He began his teaching career at Hervey Bay State High School in 1996. He 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 (2008-2020) and has written for The Guardian,{{cite news |last1=Orr |first1=Stephen |title=Stephen Orr |url=https://muckrack.com/stephen-orr-2 |publisher=Muck Rack |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} Advertiser, Sydney Morning Herald/Age, Australian Book Review and other Australian newspapers and journals.

2000-2010

Orr's first novel Attempts to Draw Jesus (based on the disappearance of two jackaroos in the Great Sandy Desert in 1986) was runner-up in the 2000 Australian/Vogel's Literary Award and 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. It was later adapted by the State Opera of South Australia as the opera Innocence,{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=Mary |date=22 June 2015 |title=Opera distills the story of Innocence Lost |url=https://indaily.com.au/inreview/2015/06/22/opera-distills-the-story-of-innocence-lost/ |publisher=InDaily |access-date=27 Sep 2022}} with libretto by Adam Goodburn and music by Anne Cawrse.

2010-Present

His 2012 novel Dissonance{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=Stella |date=21 July 2012 |title=Stephen Orr's novel, Dissonance dissects a mother's love |url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Farts%2Freview%2Fstephen-orrs-novel-dissonance-dissects-a-mothers-love%2Fnews-story%2F003dd585b4ee62f7a139f0b8fad84270&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=GROUPB-Segment-2-NOSCORE&V21spcbehaviour=append&nk=10589a5b7e873958d0d0254c9b3f13f1-1737488782 |publisher=The Australian |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} was a re-imagining of the lives of Rose and Percy Grainger. In the same year, his large scale ‘play for voices’ Westward Ho!{{cite AV media |date=2022 |title=Westward ho! |url=https://soundcloud.com/user-970551472/westward-ho |publisher=SoundCloud |access-date=13 March 2023}} 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,{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Kate |date=2 April 2014 |title=Stephen Orr's novel, One Boy Missing |url=https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/booksandarts/stephen-orr-one-boy-missing/5254418 |publisher=ABC Radio National |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} 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) was an examination of the fallout from drought and generational debt on a grazing family in remote South Australia. His novella ‘Datsunland’ was co-winner of the 2016 Griffith Review 54 Earthly Delights: The Novella Project IV and was published in the same year. This story also appeared in his 2017 book of short stories, Datsunland.{{cite book |last1=Goldsworthy |first1=Kerryn |date=26 June 2017 |title=Datsunland review: Stephen Orr's stories of characters and life in Adelaide |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/datsunland-review-stephen-orrs-stories-of-characters-and-life-in-adelaide-20170623-gwxajs.html |publisher=Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=18 Sep 2022}}

Incredible Floridas{{cite book |last1=Woodhead |first1=Cameron |date=15 January 2018 |title=Incredible Floridas review: Stephen Orr delivers a haunting, powerful novel |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/incredible-floridas-review-stephen-orr-delivers-a-haunting-powerful-novel-20180115-h0ied3.html |publisher=Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} (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,{{cite book |last1=Banyard |first1=Jen |date=2021 |title=Review of Sincerely, Ethel Malley by Stephen Orr |url=https://westerlymag.com.au/sincerely-ethel-malley/ |publisher=Westerly |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} 2021) as well as a second collection of stories, The Boy in Time (2022). He was the Australian Book Review 2020 Eucalypt Fellow, completing the long-form essay Ambassadors from Another Time{{cite book |date=October 2017 |title=Ambassadors from Another Time |url=https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2017/212-october-2017-no-395/4304-ambassadors-from-another-time-by-stephen-orr |publisher=Australian Book Review |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} (2020). 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.{{cite book |last1=Gray |first1=Lara Cain |date=26 June 2021 |title=The Lanternist by Stephen Orr and Timothy Ide |url=http://www.charminglanguage.com/2021/06/26/the-lanternist-by-stephen-orr-and-timothy-ide/ |publisher=Charming Language |access-date=18 Sep 2022}} 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.{{Cite web |date=2024-04-24 |title=Book review: Shining Like the Sun - InDaily |url=https://www.indaily.com.au/arts-culture/books-and-poetry/2024/04/24/book-review-shining-like-the-sun |access-date=2024-12-26 |website=www.indaily.com.au |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Shining Like the Sun (Stephen Orr, Wakefield) |url=https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2024/01/23/244937/shining-like-the-sun-stephen-orr-wakefield/ |website=Books + Publishing |access-date=10 March 2025}}

• Attempts to draw Jesus 2002
• Hill of Grace 2004
• Time’s Long Ruin 2010
• Dissonance 2012
• One Boy Missing 2014
• The Hands 2015
• "Datsunland" 2016
• Incredible Floridas 2017
• This Excellent Machine 2019
• Sincerely, Ethel Malley 2021
• Shining Like the Sun 2024

Young Adult novel:

• The Lanternist 2021

Short Story Collections:

• Datsunland 2017
• The Boy in Time 2022

Plays and Screenplays:

• Bloodwood (screenplay adaptation of the novel Attempts to Draw Jesus, co-written with Peter O’Brien) 2014
• Westward Ho! (play for voices) 2012

• [https://www.stephenorr.com.au/ Official website]
• [https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/interview-with-stephen-orr/ Griffith Review author interview]
• [https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/blog/2017/06/author-profiles-stephen-orr/ Wakefield Press author profile]
• [https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/podcast/760-the-abr-podcast/6585-the-abr-podcast-ambassadors-from-another-time-by-stephen-orr-20 Australian Book Review podcast ‘Ambassadors from Another Time’]
• [https://thewheelercent.wpengine.com/wlr-articles/working-with-words-stephen-orr/ Working with Words (interview with The Wheeler Centre)]
• [https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/?s=stephen+orr The Adelaide Review (articles and extracts)]

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Category:1967 births

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Adelaide

Category:University of Adelaide alumni

Category:21st-century Australian novelists

Category:21st-century Australian short story writers