Patricia Grace was born in Wellington in 1937. She lives in Plimmerton on the ancestral land of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa, and Te Ati Awa in close proximity to her home marae at Horoeka Bay, New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Patricia Grace's Waiariki, a collection of stories first published in 1975, won the Hubert Church prose award for best first book. She has written several other collections of stories and novels, her most recently published novel being Baby No-Eyes (1998). Her second novel, Potiki (1986), won the fiction section of the New Zealand Book Awards as well as the LiBeraturpreis from Frankfurt, Germany. She has also written a number of children's books, including the award-winning The Kuia and the Spider.