Authors

Claire Orchard studied English and history at Massey University and completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and is the author of two poetry collections: Cold Water Cure (2016) and Liveability (2023).

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Maurice Ormsby was born in Te Kuiti and grew up on a dairy farm at nearby Te Uira after his parents - John Ormsby, Capt 28 (Maori) Battalion, and nursing sister Kate O'Gorman - returned from World War Two. A member of Ngati Te Waha hapu of Ngati Maniapoto, Maurice holds an MA with first class honours from Canterbury University and a D Phil in Philosophy from Oxford University.

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Elizabeth Orr has made a long and distinguished contribution to the campaign for equal pay and pay equity for New Zealand women. The stories she tells in her memoir cover this — and many more aspects of her varied and colourful life. Born in Wellington in 1929, the daughter of controversial forester Pat Entrican, Elizabeth’s early education was enlivened by stints on backblocks farms. At university she mixed with talented literary personalities and future lawmakers; she married Gordon Orr, later Secretary for Justice and a member of the Waitangi Tribunal. In 1966 Elizabeth led a delegation to government to establish the National Advisory Council for the Employment of Women. She helped set the terms for the Commission on Equal Pay and saw the 1972 Equal Pay Act put in place. In the 1990s Elizabeth became the first female chancellor of Victoria University, combining university duties with building stone walls, conserving stands of native bush and creating an 18th-century style country garden at the family property near Otaki.

Bob Orr was born in 1949 in the Waikato. Most of his adult life has been spent in Auckland, where he worked as a seafarer plying the waters of the Waitematā Harbour and Hauraki Gulf. He now lives in Kohukohu, a village on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour. Bob has published eleven previous books. In 2016 he was awarded the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for Poetry and in 2017 he was the Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature comments on his 'tautly controlled imagistic lyrics, some of intense verbal beauty and force of feeling.’

Joanna Orwin has a background in plant ecology and 30 years' experience as an editor in environmental sciences. Her lifelong interests in New Zealand's landscapes and history are reflected in award-winning books that range from social and environmental history to historical and adventure novels for children and young adults. Shifting currents is her second historical novel for adults.

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