ANDREA HAIRSTON is author of Lonely Stardust, a collection of essays and plays and novels: Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the Tiptree Award and Carl Brandon Kindred Award, and Mindscape shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick and Tiptree Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Award. Her latest play Thunderbird at the Next World Theatre, appears in Geek Theater. In her spare time Andrea is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College and the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre.