Primarily an internationally acclaimed playwright[2] and librettist, she is also a published poet, screenwriter for film and television,[3] and essayist.
The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Institute referred to Tea as "one of the most widely produced Asian American plays worldwide.
[8] Her father, Lemo Houston, was an African-American, Blackfoot-Pikuni Native American, Spanish, and Portuguese man originally from Linden, Alabama.
The family settled in Junction City, Kansas, a small town adjacent to the military base, living a culturally Japanese lifestyle at the insistence of Velina's mother, Setsuko.
[18] Houston has been married to Peter Henry Jones of Manchester, England, since 2002, and resides in Los Angeles, California.