Author Bio

Stephanie Hairston is a freelance writer and self-professed geek. In the sixth grade, she wrote a very lengthy letter to one of her literary heroes, who wrote back suggesting that Stephanie write a book of her own. It was the best advice she ever got.

Since then, Stephanie has received a B.S. from Howard University, where she was selected to speak at her graduation ceremony and defended an honors thesis exploring how adolescents’ concerns about popularity affect their academic achievement. She recently earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law School and has written and presented research papers for the National Institute of Mental Health and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s also studied musical improv with the Washington Improv Theatre and is now 75% more likely to burst into song when you least expect it.

Stephanie is working as a researcher at a lobbying firm and is active in the Society for Research in Child Development and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She has explored ruins in Rome and tutored teens in Ecuador but grew up near a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Despite having cemented her reputation as the biggest geek in school by performing a rap about electrons in honors chemistry, she is happily married to the captain of her high school football team.

After seven years living in and around D.C., they’ve relocated to Miami where she’s working on her second YA novel, This Book is Not For Earthlings.