Kate Orman

Kate Orman
Work in the DWU
Main jobs:	Writer
Stories:	see credits section
Main time period active:	1992-99, 2001, 2003-05, 2008-09, 2011, 2017-present

Kate Orman was the Virgin New Adventures' only female author, and the first Australian author to write for a novel range.

She also wrote the reference book Pyramids of Mars and contributed to Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It.

She is known for including pyramids in several of her novels, but has revealed on an online question board that "...it was a joke based on the book covers! Hummer and Set Piece coincidentally featured pyramids on their covers, so as a gag I included a pyramid in Sleepy, which also ended up on the cover." Some of Orman's favourite Who authors are Paul Cornell, Ben Aaronovitch, Lance Parkin, Paul Leonard, and Lloyd Rose.

Kate Orman has noted that the Set Piece was one of the more difficult novels to write:

"Set Piece was the hardest thing to write I've ever done. It just seemed to take forever. There were several reasons. One was that I didn't do my homework before starting — unlike Hummer, I hadn't worked the plot out rigorously before starting. Another reason was Ben Aaronovitch's very helpful suggestions (I brilliantly forgot to thank him in the book). I rang him up all a-tremble, only to discover I'd gotten him out of the shower! When I rang back, he told me all sorts of amazing things about the back story for the Doctor which was being developed during the Cartmel era (lots of it is in Time's Crucible and Transit). It was fascinating — I still have all the notes — but it necessitated a major re-plot of the last third of the novel! I think that threw me — I was confused for the rest of the book..."

In 2005, Kate was the creative consultant of the official Australian and New Zealand Doctor Who - Inside the TARDIS live stage tour.

She is also a Wiccan, and often includes bits of Wicca-style magic and mythological references in her work.

Proposed novels

• "I've been learning a lot by re-writing the latest submission, Storm and Stress, over and over... Storm and Stress is set in Sydney in the year 2000."
• "Godfather Death was an Eighth Doctor novel proposal strongly influenced by Grimm's fairy tales (from which the title is taken). The story was about alien refugees arriving on earth only to be badly treated by slavers on the one hand and inhumane governments on the other (torn from today's headlines, etc etc). Different versions of the novel were rejected by both Steve and Justin, so it's pretty much dead in the water. (Unlike Male Chicks, also recently rejected, it would pretty tough to rewrite "Godfather Death" as a non-Who book.)"
• "I did submit a Sixth Doctor / Peri novel to Virgin, The Pinocchio Virus - but we just never got around to it. (There are some references to this book in SLEEPY.)
• "I've got a new proposal involving Daniel Joyce which I hope to get to Justin soon, and I'm still waiting for Gary to give me word on The Why Knot.

Bibliography

Novels

Virgin New Adventures

• The Left-Handed Hummingbird
• Set Piece
• Sleepy
• Return of the Living Dad
• So Vile a Sin (with Ben Aaronovitch)
• The Room With No Doors
• Walking to Babylon

BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures

• Vampire Science (with Jonathan Blum)
• Seeing I (with Jonathan Blum)
• Unnatural History (with Jonathan Blum)
• The Year of Intelligent Tigers

BBC Past Doctor Adventures

• Blue Box

Telos Doctor Who novellas

• Fallen Gods (with Jonathan Blum)

Short stories

Brief Encounters

• The Useful Pile
• One Minute Fourteen Seconds

Short Trips

• No Exit (in Short Trips: Steel Skies)
• The Southwell Park Mermaid (in Short Trips: Life Science)
• Culture War (in Short Trips: 2040)
• Nobody's Gift (in Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
• White on White (in Short Trips: Christmas Around the World)

Bernice Summerfield Short Stories

• Steal from the World (in The Dead Man Diaries)
• Solar Max and the Seven-Headed Snake-Mother (in A Life of Surptises)
• The Peter Principle (in Life During Wartime)
• Buried Alive (in A Life Worth Living)
• Lock (in Collected Works)
• All Mimsy Were the Borogroves (in Nobody's Children)
• Don't Do Something, Just Sit There (in Present Danger)
• Hue and Cry (with Q, in True Stories)

Faction Paradox

• Playing for Time (in Liberating Earth)

Comic stories

Doctor Who Magazine

• Change of Mind

Audio

Short Trips

• The Five Dimensional Man

Non-fiction

• Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It
• The Black Archive: Pyramids of Mars

Back cover information

Kate Orman lives in Australia. The Left-Handed Hummingbird is a triple first; Kate's first novel, the first New Adventures written by a woman, and the first written by an Antipodean.

(From the back of The Left-Handed Hummingbird, 1993)

Kate Orman reckons it's about time she wasn't the only woman and the only Antipodean writing for the New Adventures. Her first book in the series, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, is consistently voted one of the most popular by fans.

(From the back of Set Piece, 1995)

Kate Orman is (drums fingers) still the only New Adventures writer who isn't (a) male, and (b) British. Her previous books The Left-Handed Hummingbird and Set Piece, also have pyramids in them.

(From the back of Sleepy, 1996)

Kate Orman lives on the InterNet, and occasionally in Sydney, Australia. This is her fourth New Adventure.

(From the back of Return of the Living Dad, 1996)

Kate Orman lives in Sydney, Australia. This is her fifth and a half novel novel in the New Adventures series. Ben Aaronovitch lives in North London and is married with one son.

(From the back of So Vile a Sin, 1997)

Kate Orman lives in Sydney, Australia, wrote most of this book in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is feeling somewhat jetlagged. She has written numerous novels for Virgin.

(From the back of Walking to Babylon, 1998)

External links

• Official Facebook page
• Kate Orman - livejournal
• The Cat in the Hat talks back, An Interview with Kate Orman, Interview conducted by Richard Prekodravac 3rd March 1995, which appeared in issue two of Broadsword
• A short interview with Kate , piece was conducted on November 6 1996, it appeared in Broadsword issue eleven
• David J Richardson interview with Kate Orman, published in Sonic Screwdriver #88 January 1995