ALMA DE GROEN began writing plays in 1968. While in Canada in 1970, Alma won a national playwriting competition with her short work, The Joss Adams Show. Her plays include The Sweatproof Boy (later titled Perfectly All Right), The After-Life of Arthur Cravan, Going Home, Chidley, Vocations, The Rivers of China (winner of the Premier's Literary Award for Drama in both New South Wales and Victoria), The Girl Who Saw Everything (winner of the 1993 AWGIE for Best Stage Play), and Blood Sisters. Her play The Woman in the Window was supported by a grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and shortlisted for the 1999 NSW Premier's Award for Drama. De Groen was awarded the 1985 AWGIE award for her television adaptation of Man Of Letters. She later wrote a telemovie After Marcuse for ABC TV and has written scripts for the television series Single and Rafferty's Rules. De Groen has also worked for radio: Available Light and Stories In The Dark (with Ian Mackenzie), which was the Australian 1996 Prix Italia entry. De Groen was the first playwright to win the Patrick White Literary Award for her contribution to Australian theatre.
