Fiona Samuel

Fiona Samuel graduated from the New Zealand Drama School in 1980 and started her working life as an actor. She began to write shortly afterwards, and her first radio play, Blonde Bombshell, won a Mobil Award for Best Drama in 1984.
Fiona moved into writing for television with The Marching Girls, an original seven-part series screened in 1987. Subsequent writing for television includes the single dramas Overnight and Home Movie, both of which won NZ Film and Television Awards for Best Drama; the trilogy of solo dramas Face Value, and episodes for numerous series including Interrogation, Rude Awakenings and Outrageous Fortune.
Fiona now writes and directs for television. Her two most recent dramas are Piece of my Heart, a telefeature about young unmarried mothers forced to give up their babies for adoption in 1960s New Zealand, and BLISS, a feature-length drama about the young Katherine Mansfield.
Fiona’s stage plays include The Wedding Party – a play with songs; Lashings of whipped Cream – A Session with a Teenage Dominatrix; One Flesh, The Liar's Bible and Ghost Train, which won the NZ Writers Guild Award for Best Play in 2010.
Fiona was awarded the Arts Foundation of NZ Laureate Award 2012.