Stephen Kinnane was raised in Noongar country in south-west Western Australia and is a descendant of the Miriwoong people of the East Kimberley, through his maternal grandmother. He has worked as a writer and researcher on community cultural heritage projects.
As co-writer and co-producer of an ABC television documentary, 'The Coolbaroo Club', he was awarded a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Human Rights Award for the Arts in 1996. In 2017 he was a member of the Indigenous Australian Dictionary of Biography working party.