She is the artistic director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for more than a decade. Hairston is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies atSmith College.[5] She teaches playwriting, African, African American, and Caribbean theatre literature.Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, StageWest, and on public radio and television. In addition, Hairston has translated plays byMichael Ende andKaca Celan from German to English.[6]
Hairston was born and raised inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where as a teenager she did community organizing work with union, civil rights and antiwar activism.[7] She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.[citation needed]
"Griots of the Galaxy" in Hopkinson, N. and Uppinder, M., eds.,So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004[8][10]
"Excerpt fromMindscape", in Thomas, S.R., ed.,Dark Matter: Reading The Bones: Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Grand Central Publishing, 2004.[8][11]
"Saltwater Road" inLightspeed , Issue 62, July 2015[8]
"Dumb House" in Shawl, N., ed.,New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, Rebellion Publishing, 2019.[8][12]
"'I Wanna Be Great!': How to Rescue the Spirit in the Wasteland of Fame" in Donkin, E. and Clement, S., ed.,Upstaging Big Daddy: Directing Theater as if Gender and Race Matter, University of Michigan Press, 1993.[8][13]
"Driving Mr. Lenny: Notes on Race and Gender as a Transport to Another Reality, Another Dimension" inThe International Review of Science Fiction, 2004[8][14]
“Octavia Butler–Praise Song to a Prophetic Artist” in Larbalestier, J., ed.,Daughters of the Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, Wesleyan University Press, 2006[8][15]
"King Kong" in Duchamp, L. T., ed.,The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 1, Aqueduct Press, 2007[8]
"Double Consciousness" in Barr, M., ed.,Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction’s Newest New Wave Trajectory, Ohio State University Press, 2008[16][8]
"Romance of the Robot: FromRUR &Metropolis toWALL-E" in Kelso, S., ed.,The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 4, Aqueduct Press, 2010.[8]
"Stories Are More Important than Facts: Imagination as Resistance in Guillermo del Toro’sPan’s Labyrinth" in Duchamp, L. T., ed.,Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles, Aqueduct Press, 2010.[8]
"Heretical Connectedness: An Appreciative Look atSymbiotic Planet by Lynn Margulis" inCascadia Subduction Zone, Vol. 1., No. 4, October 2011.[8][17]
"Different and Equal Together: SF Satire inDistrict 9" inJournal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2011.[8][18]
"Guest of Honor 2012 Speech" in Vanderhooft, J., ed.,The WisCon Chronicles, Vol 7., Aqueduct Press, 2013.[8][19]
"Disappearing Natives: The Colonized Body is Monstrous" inExtrapolation, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2013.[8][20]
International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for distinguished contributions to the scholarship and criticism of the fantastic, 2011
Older Writers Grant, Speculative Literature Foundation for Exploding in Slow Motion excerpt, 2004.[30]
NEA Grant to Playwrights, a Ford Foundation grant to collaborate with Senegalese Master Drummer Massamba Diop, and a Shubert Fellowship for Playwriting.[31]
