Ned Stephenson was born in Sydney and then raised on a sheep farm in southern New South Wales, before returning to Sydney to study biology and earth sciences. Since then, he has worked in the agriculture and mining sectors in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and New South Wales. His short stories have been published in the Newcastle Short Story Award anthology, the Grieve Project anthology, Alice Sinclair Memorial anthology, and most recently he won the People’s Choice Award in the 2023 Newcastle Herald short story competition.