Bio:Robert N. Stephenson
Robert N Stephenson was born in Adelaide on the 17th of September and 9:15 am 1961 to Norman Fredrick and Diane Clare Stephenson. He had a passion for writing from a very early age with his first story at 10 being about Robin Hood and his second story soon after titled the Gin Swigger from Kansas City, which earned him some time being watched by teachers. It wasn't until 1996 that he sat down and started writing deliberately rather than casuallt as he had done with him poetry collection published in 1992 'Garments of Rainbows'. HIs first sales of Alone With Ghosts which sold to Talebones Magazine. This first sale set him on a solid path to numerous sales in the short fiction world, with work appearing in Nowa Fantastyka in Polnad, Global SF in China, Interzone in the UK and many small press magazines across the USA. HIs works have been performed on radio (5EBI Adelaide) with some of his religious observations being used in synagogues and churches across the globe.
In 2004 his first novel was published, 'Life Light' by Nowa Fantastyka's Special Editions in Polish, though it has never been seen in English. There have been small publications of a How to write with determination, 'The Writing Soldier' 2006 a collection of published short stories, 'We Would Be Heroes' 2004, the dark fiction novel <a href"http://www.amazon.com/Uttuku-Books-Darkness-Robert-Stephenson/dp/1451503180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304202828&sr=8-1">'Uttuku'</a> 2010 www.amazon.com and a collection of mainstream literature, 'The Human Landscape.' 2012
Robert worked as an agent for a number of years helping to set up new work by Tony Shillitoe and Christy Fenton Jordan. He was awarded a Pride of Australias pin in 2008 for his work with establishing new writers, he won the Black Dog Award in 2006 with his written examination of depression and set up two major Australian Awards, The Peter McNamara Achievement Award and The Australian SHadows Award for best horror fiction for a calandar year. THe AUstralian Shadows Award was named by his then 9 year old daughter Emma.
In the publishing speher he has also run Altair Australia Pty Ltd, a small press publishing company dedicated to ecclectic works by well known authors, he has published 24 titles to date, including the works of Tony Shillitoe, Sophie Masson, Sean Williams, Kurt von Trojan, Jack McDevitt, David Brin and Kate Forsyth; along with several anthologies, The Tales fron the Black Wood, Robots and Time, Zombies and Leaves of Blood.
Personally Robert is outspoken and pulls few punches when speaking about the industry he is involved in, he loves writing with a passion and attacks all tasks like a wild dog at a fresh bone, but there are costs for such attitudes and he certainly feels them sometimes. As a writer he lives with bipolar depression, which can cause problems from time to time and he has been known to get quite irate when people dismiss his comments as a condition of his illness, or in fact when anyone has their opinions and views dismissed as part of some mental condition; this makes him a steadfast supporter of all groups that struggle to change social attitudes towards mental illness.
Robert's bibliography on this site is quite incomplete, as there have been over 100 publications at the time of writing this bio, but in time these will eventually be listed.