Laila Stien published her first collection of stories, ThenewRoad, in 1979, and has since become one of Norway’s most acclaimed and prolific short story writers, with collections coming out in 1983, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2010 and 2015. Some of her stories have been translated and published in, among others, McSweeneys and Fiction Magazine. She has written books for children, poetry, a libretto and one novel, Antiphony, the latter being translated and published in the United States in 2006.
 In 2000 she was awarded the Aschehoug  Prize, and for her latest short story collection, OvertheRiver, she was nominated to the Young Reader’s Critic’s Award . One of the stories in this collection won the prize for best short story in a competition presented by the Norwegian public broadcasting  (NRK).
Laila Stien is also a key translator of Sami literature into Norwegian. Her latest work is the translation of Risten Sokki’s short story collection Stonebird in 2019.