Colleen Maria Lenihan (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is a fiction writer, screenwriter and photographer, and a graduate of Te Papa Tupu and The Creative Hub. Her writing has appeared in Reading Room and The Pantograph Punch, and Kōhine is her first book. Colleen has been awarded a number of residencies: Michael King Writers’ Centre Emerging Māori Writer (2019); Newroom/Surrey Hotel Winner (2019); the Dan Davin Literary Foundation (2021); and Victoria University of Wellington, International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) and Creative New Zealand Emerging Māori Writer in Residence (2023). After fifteen years in Tokyo and a year in New York City, Colleen returned to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2016 where she is now based.
