One of eight children, Stephany Steggall began her education by correspondence lessons on a sheep property near Goondiwindi, where her father was boundary rider and jackeroo. She then attended Mt Marshall and Warwick Central primary schools and completed her secondary education at Warwick High School. She trained as a secondary school teacher in Brisbane and taught at various schools across the Darling Downs, but mainly in Toowoomba where her four children did most of their growing up.
After writing freelance articles for many years, she returned to study at the University of Queensland where she has completed an Honours degree with a thesis on the poetry of David Rowbotham; then an MPhil in Australian Literature with a thesis on the poetry of John Blight. She later received a PhD from the University of Queensland for a biographical study of Colin Thiele. In 2004 Steggall published her first book, a biography of Thiele entitled Can I Call You Colin?. Her biography of Ivan Southall was published in 2006. In 2005 she received a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to assist with the writing of a biography of Bruce Dawe . This was published in 2009.
