Briar Grace-Smith (Nga Puhi, Nga Wai) is a playwright, screenwriter, poet and short story writer. She won the 1995 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award for her first major play, Nga Pou Wahine, and Purapurawhetu won Best New Zealand Play at the 1997 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. In 2000 Grace-Smith received the Arts Foundation Laureate Award and in 2009 her first feature film, The Strength of Water, premiered internationally. She worked as an actor and writer with the Maori theatre companies Te Ohu Whakaari and He Ara Hou. Her other writing credits include the screenplay Fresh Meat and the TV series Fish Skin Suit. Her play When Sun and Moon Collide, first staged in 2000, is being produced by the Auckland Theatre Company, June 20 to July 6.