About the Author

MEET ELAINE L. ORR

ABOUT ELAINE

Elaine L. Orr has written, edited, and published for more than 30 years in business and popular fields. Topics are as diverse as family caregving, how to distract yourself from worry, family and local histories, social service programs, human resources, and management of public sector organizations.

Book-length works include (non-fiction) -- Monett (Arcadia Publishing), Caring for Treasures: Helping Your Parents Through Life and Death and Words to Write By: Putting Your Thoughts on Paper. Caring for Treasures is out of print but will be revised and reissued as an electronic book in 2011. Her novel, Searching for Secrets (Author House), is a light mystery published in 2002. Biding Time is a coming-of-age story of the nephew of a Vietnam vet and is set in Washington, DC. Secrets of the Gap features the ancient Roman Baths of Bath, England in a modern mystery.

Elaine has written several other novels and screenplays, and her play, Permission to Hope, received a staged reading at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

A disciplined freelance writer and editor, Elaine’s work has appeared in Government Executive, Public Administration Times, The Public Manager, and The Peace Institute Reporter. She regularly submits to http://www.associatedcontent.com/.

Elaine has written reports for such organizations as the National Academy of Public Administration, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, CPS Human Resources, and Women in Community Service. She was associate editor of The Public Manager for 11 years, and has written for a variety of newsletters.

Elaine graduated from the University of Dayton with a BA in Political Science and from the American University with an MA in Government. She has done journalism coursework at the University of Maryland and taken many fiction courses from The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, Georgetown University’s Continuing Education Program, the University of Iowa Summer Writing Program, and Midwest Writers Workshop.

She divides her time between writing/editing and other endeavors. Elaine moved from the Washington metro area to Iowa in 1994. For years she traveled and telecommuted for a range of clients. She then worked in Iowa for two members of Congress, Jim Leach and Dave Loebsack. She is married to James Larkin, whom she met in Iowa. They now live in Indiana and Elaine has retired from the federal government. She writes and edits full-time and looks forward to becoming more involved in the community of Muncie, IN.

Author photo by Michael W. Lemberger.