3 Minutes with Andrea, Author of Will Do Magic for Small Change

With just a little over a day left on the Afrofuturism storybundle Andrea Hairston shares her thoughts on working in different forms and the intersection of Will Do Magic

How does being a playwright inform your work?

I am a dramatic storyteller. Drama is about the poetry of action. Meaning is in the juxtaposition of actions, in the clash of character choices and consequences. Theatre is about embodying the other—acting who you are not, writing another world, experimenting with reality. Theatre takes me right to speculative world building and stories beyond mimetic realism.

Why this story?

Stories come to me. They have to be written. I honor that.

I’d been thinking about the Dahomey (West African) warrior women who supposedly appeared at the Chicago World’s Fair for a long time. There’s a moment in an earlier novel, Redwood and Wildfire, where they also appear. So why not have an alien from another dimension meet them and learn the world from their perspective? Why not connect Redwood and Wildfire’s granddaughter with the alien?

Describe this work in 3 words.

Alien Ancestor Theatre-magic

How do you measure writing success?

Success is telling the stories you want to tell, how you want to tell them.
Success is challenging yourself and showing up every day for that challenge.
Success is having the generosity of spirit and the humility to connect with and support other artists.
Success is never giving up on getting better, but taking pleasure in what you have achieved.