Steven Lang lives near Maleny with his wife, Tyyni, and their dog, Mhairi (Vari). His three novels have each either won or been short-listed for major literary awards in Australia.

He and Tyyni co-direct Outspoken, an extended writer’s festival – a series of conversations with authors – which has been running in Maleny in SE Queensland for twelve years.

He sits on the board of Lake Baroon Catchment Care Group, in the role of Secretary.

Books

2017

Hinterland UQP

Tensions have been building in the old farming district of Winderran. The rich semi-rural landscape has attracted a new wave of urban tree-changers and wealthy developers. Traditional loyalties and values are pushed to the brink when it is announced a dam will be built upstream of the town.

Local residents Eugenie Lensman and Guy Lamprey find themselves on the opposite sides of the debate, while the new locum, Nick, discovers there are more sinister forces at work. The personal and the political collide in ways that will change their fates and determine the future of the town.

Short-listed: ALS Gold Award 2018

Praise for Hinterland

‘Stunning’ Books + Publishing ‘a love story to the land and a tense exploration of the divisions arising from political alliances, personal beliefs and inherited ideals. Lang’s descriptions of the landscape are beautiful, evoking a stunning visual backdrop for the small hinterland town. His characters are vivid, revealing a true sense of their past and current allegiances, transgressions and ambitions.’

2010

88 Lines About 44 Women, Viking

For a while Lawrence Martin had everything: he was the keyboard player in a chart-topping rock band; he had money, drugs, his choice of women. He had come a long way from the British boarding school where he first met Roly, the charismatic Australian front man with whom he shared the song-writing. Only after it all went wrong did Lawrence learn they’d been sharing other things as well. Two decades on, living in the Highlands of Scotland, he finds himself confronted by the memory of those turbulent years, before it all went wrong…

Wry, insightful, intelligent, 88 Lines About 44 Women traces the boundaries of shame and how it obstructs the capacity for love. Are all men emotionally disconnected? Can true intimacy bring redemption?

Shortlisted for the Christina Stead Award for Fiction 2010

Shortlisted for the Qld Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction 2010

Praise for 88 Lines About 44 Women:

an excellent novel, Australian Book Review

lucid and precise, Adelaide Radio

a powerful example of the strength of Australian fiction, Canberra Times

Everything about An Accidental Terrorist spoke of a prodigious talent and hinted at a promising career. Lang’s new novel, 88 Lines About 44 Women, has not only lived up to that promise, but extended his reach on the physical terrain as well as on the contours of the human heart, Bron Sibree, The West Australian.

As much as the healing of a faded rock star in the Scottish Highlands may sound like a detour from most reader’s home ground, this novel’s orchestration of memory, landscape, music and human relationships is so pitch-perfect and complete that it feels like first hand experience. This is a brilliantly humane novel, Tim Kennedy Hanna, The Australian Literary Review.

This is an excellent novel; a finely calibrated blend of a carefully paced thriller and a literary exploration of masculinity, Jo Case, Readings, Melbourne, in The Australian Book Review.

[88 Lines] opens with a nail-bitingly taut scene of high drama on the ocean involving a beautiful semi-naked woman, the threat of the open water and some unresolved sexual tension that is bound to end badly. [But] if the opening flags a sexually charged psychological thriller of the Dead Calm variety, be prepared to be surprised. Lang’s … aspirations lie elsewhere. His best writing arises from his emotional engagement with place and his tender examination of his damaged characters’ capacity for love, Liam Davison, The Weekend Australian.

2005

An Accidental Terrorist, UQP

On returning to his home town on the southern coast of New South Wales Kelvin finds himself drawn to a community back in the hills. He meets Jessica, a would-be writer who has escaped the city, and her enigmatic neighbour, Carl. Both are pursuing new lives inspired by the extraordinary landscape around them.

As his relationship with Jessica intensifies Kelvin is caught up by some of the radical elements in the community. No-one, however, is quite who they seem, and Kelvin makes a decision that will have devastating consequences for all of them. Deep in the southern forests, the story builds to a dramatic climax.

Winner, UTS Award for a First Novel, NSW Premier’s Awards

Winner, Best Unpublished Manuscript, Qld Premier’s Literary Awards

Short-listed, Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, new novels

Long-listed, Miles Franklin Award

Praise for An Accidental Terrorist:

A gripping, sensuous and at times breathtaking work, The Sydney Morning Herald.

A well-crafted and enticingly paced novel, that gets under the skin of a deeply entrenched social and environmental problem, The Canberra Times.

Lang’s first novel presages a strong literary career, The Weekend Australian.

Exhibits the health of Australian fiction in the new millennium, The Bulletin/Newsweek.

A slow burn thriller engaged with contemporary issues … hypnotically written and engaging, Australian Bookseller and Publisher.

Lang skilfully ratchets up the tension in the second half, leading to a genuinely thrilling
climax in which the various undercurrents of the novel, both personal and political, converge… a fine debut, The Age

2010

A Strong Brown God, the Mary River Diary, Lang House Press (non-fiction)

In 1842 the Crown Commissioner for Lands, Stephen Simpson and Christoph Eipper, a Lutheran priest, set out from Moreton Bay with the intention of finding a site for a new Aboriginal settlement in the Larger Bunya Country, now Kenilworth. They were accompanied on their journey by twelve soldiers, a team of bullocks and a dray, as well as the two escaped convicts, James Davis and James Bracewell, as guides. Both these men had lived for an extended period amongst the Natives. 150 years later Steven Lang followed their route from the source of the Mary River near Maleny, to where it joins the sea, near Maryborough. In A Strong Brown God Lang weaves the story of his own journey with that of the earlier men, both Aboriginal and White, delivering a fascinating picture of the Mary Valley as it was then and as it is now; a very personal portrait that becomes a paean for the river and its importance.

In this beautifully illustrated book Lang gives an account of his journey down the Mary River, weaving his own story with that of the original inhabitants and the first white settlers.