Whiti Hereaka (Ngati Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa) is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, barrister and solicitor and has an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She has had many plays produced for the stage, and in 2012 she won the Bruce Mason Award. She has won several awards for her scriptwriting, including Best New Play by a Maori Playwright, Adam Play Awards in 2010 for Te Kaupoi and again in 2011 for Rona and Rabbit on the Moon. In 2007, she was the writer in residence at Randell Cottage and wrote her first novel, The Graphologist's Apprentice, which was shortlisted for Best First Book in the Commonwealth Writers Prize South East Asia and Pacific 2011. She also held a residency at the Michael King Writers' Centre in 2012 and wrote the play Rewena, to be performed at Centrepoint theatre in 2013.