New Zealand Writers

GRACE-SMITH Briar

Packs myth and reality, past and present, nature and art, into one morally troubling but artistically satisfying whole.

Belonging to the Ngati Hau hapu of Nga Puhi, Grace-Smith has worked as an actor and writer with the Maori theatre companies Te Ohu Whakaari and He Ara Hou.

Her early plays, Don't Call Me Bro and Flat Out Brown, were first performed at the Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington in 1996. Waitapu, a play written by Grace-Smith, was devised by the He Ara Hou theatre group and performed by the group on the Native Earth Performing Arts tour in Canada in 1996.

Nga Pou Wahine won the Peter Harcourt award for best short play at the 1995 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. That same year Grace-Smith won the Bruce Mason Playwrights Award.

Purapurawhetu was judged Best New Zealand Play at the 1997 Chapman Tripp theatre awards. In the NZ Listener one critic writes that "[l]ike all great tragedies, Greek or Shakespearian, Purapurawhetu packs myth and reality, past and present, nature and art, into one morally troubling but artisitcally satisfying whole. It is a new classic of New Zealand theatre."

With Jo Randerson, Grace-Smith co-wrote The Sojourners of Boy, produced by Taki Rua and Bats, and performed at Bats theatre in 1996.

Grace-Smith's short stories have been broadcast on National Radio and appeared in anthologies including Penguin New Writers (1998), Tangata, Tangata (1999), Toi Wahine (1995), and Huia Short Stories (1995).

In 1998 Grace Smith was Writer in Residence at Massey University. Her most recent play is Haruru Mai, commissioned for the International Festival 2000.

Briar Grace Smith was the recipient of a 2000 Arts Foundation Laureate Award. Theatre commentator and Arts Foundation panel member Sunny Amey said of Grace-Smith at the awards ceremony: "She goes from strength to strength. She is worldly-wise with huge wairua and a wicked sense of humour - all great ingredients for a writer."
(KC.)

Updated Information

Briar Grace-Smith was one of four authors shortlisted for the inaugural Glenn Schaeffer Prize in Modern Letters. With a cash award of $60,000 it is Australasia's most lucrative literary award.

She was the 2003 Victoria University Writer in Residence.

Briar Grace-Smith participated in 'On the Bus: Flat Out Brown Contemporary Maori Writers on Tour' Taupo 9 – 13 February 2004. Her short story 'Te Manawa' appeared The Six Pack, the sampler of New Zealand writing from New Zealand's inaugral Book Month publication (2006).