Barbara Anderson, who began writing plays in 1984, has had two of her scripts accepted for the Playwrights' Workshop - Bonny and Bruce in 1984 and Truth Kick in 1986. Truth Kick (now retitled Joggers) was the joint winner of the 1986 John Cowie Reid Prize for a full-length play. In 1992 she was awarded the Wattie's Fiction prize for her novel Portrait of the Artist's Wife.