Greg McGee was born in Oamaru in 1950 and educated at Waitaki Boys' High School and Otago University, graduating with an LLB in 1973. His first play, Foreskin's Lament, was workshopped at Playmarket's first New Zealand Playwrights' Conference in Wellington in 1980 and subsequently presented by every major New Zealand theatre company. Foreskin's Lament was described as "a quantum leap forward in New Zealand drama" (NZ Listener).

He writes not only for stage, but also film and television.

At the beginning of 2007 McGee left his production company, ScreenWorks, to concentrate on writing - fiction and non-fiction

Tall Tales (some True)

isbn: 9780143009139

Greg McGee's haphazard journey as unlikely writer, rebellious rugby player, ambivalent protestor, lawyer and defendant, mutineer tourist, dilettante coach and incompetent kangaroo culler has taken him from Ponsonby to Paraburdoo, Tapanui to Harlem, Dunedin to Venice and various other T-shirt destinations. During this time he has crossed paths with a diverse cast of characters, from Peter Mahon to Keith Murdoch, Peggy Guggenheim to Duncan Laing, Ken Gray to Billy T. James, Raymond Hawthorne to Bert Potter, not to mention Grizz Wylie, Janet Frame's brother, Sicilian witches, Vincent van Gogh and writers, actors, producers and other denizens of stage and screen. Tall Tales (Some True) is an unabashedly subjective account of that journey, and of the backstage mechanics of a particular writer's life. It is a seriously entertaining attempt to answer the question writers get asked most often - 'Where do you get your ideas from?'