Don Bredes was born in New York City. Bredes eventually attended Syracuse University, then moved to Irvine, California, attending the University of California there, and finally Stanford University in that same state. At Stanford, Don Bredes was a Wallace Stegner Fellow.

Don Bredes has written for the Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times Magazine, in addition to writing several novels - most of them a series about Hector Bellevance, a Vermont native. Bredes currently lives with his wife and daughter in Wheelock, Vermont.