Whiti Hereaka is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Tuhourangi, Ngāti Tumatawera, Tainui and Pākehā descent, based in Wellington. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the International Institute of Modern Letters.
She is the author of three novels: The Graphologist’s Apprentice, and the award-winning YA novels Bugs and Legacy.
In 2019, Legacy won the New Zealand Children’s and Young Adult Book Award for YA fiction. She is also co-editor, with Witi Ihimaera, of an anthology of Māori myths — Pūrākau — published in 2019.
Her latest novel Kurangaituku will be released in October 2021.