About Elaine L. Orr

Elaine L. Orr has written the Irish Roots Author Blog since late 2011. She largely focuses on writing and publishing but occasionally detours to what she calls musings on a variety of topics.

Her nearly forty books (mostly mysteries) don't contain a lot of intense drama or gore. What makes Elaine’s fiction different from other traditional mysteries? Some might say the dry humor, but she thinks it is the empathy her characters show to others. 

Fiction can’t ‘lecture’ readers. But it can contain people whose paths we cross every day — whether we know it or not. The bright colleague or grouchy neighbor who’s actually in severe emotional pain, the families struggling to provide enough food for their children, the vet with PTSD. While characters solve crimes or plan silly fundraisers, they can tacitly let us know there is a world beyond those activities. And maybe they can make it a little better.

Elaine worked in the public and nonprofit sectors for many years, largely for the Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Public Administration. She ended her primary career by working for two members of Congress in Iowa -- one Republican and one Democrat. She continues to substitute teach, usually in a middle school. She's usually the oldest person in the building and loves it.

While Elaine always wrote, she didn’t start publishing until her fifties. Don’t wait to go where your dreams want to take you -- it's why she calls her solo publishing firm Lifelong Dreams Publishing. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Elaine is married to James Larkin and is very close to her five siblings. She feels lucky about that.