Bio & Contact

I’m a freelance writer based in Durham, NC. I write about poverty, communities, religion, and the people who interest me for a range of local and national publications. I also help nonprofit organizations advance their missions with a variety of writing tasks.

Writing hasn’t always been my main focus. I used to be a policy wonk, and in North Carolina, my home state, I was the policy director of the NC Housing Coalition. Then I moved to Washington, DC, where I earned a degree in Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program and served as the communications officer for Freedom House, the country’s oldest human rights organization. Now I’m happily back in NC; serendipitously, my husband got a job here as a labor and delivery nurse.

I have a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California at Berkeley and spent several years in my twenties working on farms and traveling around the world, sometimes on a bike. I still ride a bike everywhere and am an avid dancer and meditator, as well as the mom of two small boys.

To get in touch, tweet @ me, send a message to manda.abrams@gmail.com or use the form below.