Briar Grace-Smith has written for stage, page and screen. The Listener called her play Purapurawhetu "a new classic of New Zealand theatre". Haruru Mai, the tale of a Māori battalion veteran, won acclaim at the 2000 International Festival of the Arts. After writing for TV's Mataku and Being Eve and creating one-off tale Fish Skin Suit, Grace-Smith made her feature debut in 2009 with small town drama The Strength of Water.
I’m probably telling the same story again and again, and it’s something about the underdogs. They’re the characters that interest me.
– Briar Grace-Smith, interviewed in Turbine