Lorraine Orman

ABOUT

In Brief

Lorraine Orman is a children’s book author who worked for many years as a librarian. She is also a volunteer for Storylines: Children’s Literature Foundation of New Zealand. Her stories have been widely anthologized and broadcast on national radio, and Orman’s first novel for young adults, Cross Tides, won the Best First Book Award at the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Orman participates in the Writers in Schools programme.

In Detail

Lorraine Orman was born in Auckland in 1948. She was educated at the University of Auckland, and completed her training as a librarian in Wellington in 1970. A career librarian, Orman worked in a secondary school library and a teachers’ training college library. When she retired she was able to dedicate her time to writing and reviewing New Zealand children's books.

Orman’s short stories have been published in the School Journal, and numerous anthologies such as The Puffin New Zealand Storybook (Puffin, 1991, 1996) and Hideous & Hilarious: 30 New Zealand Historical Stories (Random House, 2006).

Orman’s first novel for young adults Cross Tides (Longacre) was published in 2004. It won the Best First Book Award at the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2005. Kev and Borax (Penguin Australia, 2005) was published in the Aussie Bites series. Penguin New Zealand published three titles in its Kiwi Bites series: Ratso (2005), Furze The Fixer (2005), and Fish Tale (2006).

Orman has written two novels for Scholastic New Zealand's historical My Story series: A Long Walk From Home: The Diary of Lillian Glenmore, Warkworth, 1943 (2005) and Land of Promise: The Diary of William Donahue, Gravesend to Wellington, 1839-40 (2008).

In 2007, Longacre published Orman's second novel for young adults, called Hideout. Hideout was listed as a 2008 Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction Book. In the same year Out of the Deep and Other Stories from New Zealand and the Pacific (Reed/Storylines Trust) was jointly edited by Lorraine Orman and Tessa Duder.

Orman is author of the Top 100 New Zealand Children’s Books of the 20th Century, which was published in The Inside Story: Year Book 2001 (Children’s Literature Foundation, 2001). She has also served as a judge for the 2004 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and writes book reviews for Magpies and Kiwi Write4Kids.

Land of Promise: The Diary of William Donahue, Gravesend to Wellington (1839-40) (Scholastic New Zealand) was listed as a 2009 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book.

Orman's book Haunted (2009) is a title in the Lightning Strikes series published by Walker Books Australia.

Lorraine Orman lives and writes at Omaha Beach, near Warkworth.