'[1] Stephen Orr was born in the Adelaide suburb of Hillcrest, South Australia, later reimagined as Gleneagles in his 2019 novel This Excellent Machine.

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 2021, concerned about a lack of engaging books for boys in his classes, he wrote and published The Lanternist,[11] an Edwardian adventure story with illustrations by Timothy Ide.

His 2024 novel Shining Like the Sun[12] (with a title based on a quote by Thomas Merton) explored the life of an old man trying to hold his family (and small town) together in the face of unalterable changes.