Sam Brooks is an award-winning and prolific playwright and journalist, who is largely noted for his critically acclaimed LGBTQ+ work, including Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys, Queen, and most recently This is My Story of Us, which was co-winner of the 2024 Adam New Zealand Play Award. He won the Bruce Mason Playwright's Award, New Zealand's most prestigious award for playwrights. In 2018 his political work, Burn Her, was performed as part of Q's Matchbox Season and won the Auckland Theatre Excellence Award for Best Overall Production. He has been shortlisted multiple years for the Adam New Zealand Play Award, and won the Dean Parker award in 2023.
As a journalist, he has written for The Spinoff and has had bylines at the Pantrograph Punch, Metro and the NZ Herald.