She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Three of Haigh's books are set in fictional Saxon County, Pennsylvania, in the coal region of northern Appalachia, earning comparisons to Sherwood Anderson's seminal short story collection, Winesburg, Ohio.

Published in 2013, Haigh's short story collection News From Heaven returns to Saxon County and features encore appearances by several characters from Baker Towers.

[12][13] A critic for The Washington Post wrote, "Haigh's achievement in this expansive, gripping novel is to delineate the ways in which we are all connected, for better and worse, by pipelines and electrical wires, coal dust and gas fumes.

Washington Post book editor Ron Charles wrote, "Haigh brings a refreshing degree of humanity to a story you think you know well, and in chapters both riveting and profound, she catches the avalanche of guilt this tragedy unleashes in one devout family.

"[23] Published just months before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mercy Street (2022) focuses on the disparate lives that intersect at an embattled women's clinic in Boston.