Born and raised in Washington DC, Houston left home at age 16 to work in experimental theater in New York City. Her early work and study was with such theater greats as Liz Swados, Joseph Papp, Joe Chaikin, Peter Brook, La Mama, Woody King, and Ntozake Shange. It was this diverse background that laid the foundation for her immersion into film and television. In 1996 Dianne Houston transformed a forgotten Harlem Renaissance short story into the Academy Award nominated short film Tuesday Morning Ride, which she both wrote and directed. This nomination made Houston the first African American woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the Live Action Shorts category. Houston was nominated for the 2017 Writer's Guild Award for her script Surviving Compton. Surviving Compton also won the 2017 Gracie Award and won the premiere night for Lifetime, reaching #1 for adult viewers. Houston's script for New Line's Take the Lead (starring Antonio Banderas, Alfre Woodard, and Yaya DeCosta) earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination. Houston recently directed the cable pic Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, and wrote an episode of ABC'S miniseries When We Rise with Dustin Lance Black.