Abeer's Bio
I am a writer, photographer, and editor. You can see my writing publications here, my photographs on Flickr, and my editing website, Abeer Prep.
I was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and lived in the small university town of Nsukka until I was 13 (my parents are teachers). My family then moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylania, where I completed high school.
For a more tender appreciation of Western Pennsylvania and its football addled residents, you can visit my little brother, Maher's website: jollybengali.net. Maher works for PNC Bank as an IT consultant and lives in Pittsburgh. My younger sister, Simi, did her Ph.D. in architecture at UC Berkeley while simultaneously teaching at MIT (rockstar) and working for an environmental engineering and architecture firm. She now teaches (architecture, engineering, and environmental science) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her partner, Ezra is an atmospheric scientist at a research firm in Boston. I also have a year old niece, Ilana Woodhoque. My parents live in Pittsburgh where my father is a writer and retired professor of geology and my mother teaches computers and economics.
I consider Philadelphia my first real home in the US as I spent the decade after high school in that vastly underrated city. I did business undergrad and grad school there and also worked and played frisbee and danced and biked all over town. However, San Francisco, where I lived for four years and did my writing degree, is my favourite city in the US, maybe in the world.
In the summer of 2005, armed with a one way ticket to Bangkok, I left San Francisco to go travelling for a year (this turned into five). I was spurred by a combination of losing my job and my apartment in one fell swoop. After finishing my whine about how my life was falling apart, I decided that joblessness and homelessness and partnerlessness and schoollessness don't come into confluence often, and I should take advantage of it. It also helped that I landed a sweet, part-time, remote editing gig that I could essentially do from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection (which at this point appears to be ubiquitous).
I spent close to two years in Bangladesh and India during which I researched and wrote my second book and held two solo photography exhibitions, all funded by a luscious Fulbright Scholarship (thank you, Uncle Sam). The rest of the five years, I rented or borrowed flats in Bangkok, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, London, New York, San Francisco, and Mexico City. My pitch-perfect if penniless gypsy life has also taken me to Argentina, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brasil, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Fiji, France, India, Ireland, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Singapore, Turkey, and Vietnam.
I am now in London for the summer and planning on moving to New York in late 2010 to pitch my three books to agents and publishers. My first book is called Olive Witch and is a memoir set in Nigeria, the States, and Bangladesh. The second is a novel in stories based in Bangladesh and India and called the Lovers and the Leavers. My current book, in progress, is a fiction novel entitled Memory Alone.
The best way to get in touch with me is via email, and as anyone who knows me will tell you, I give good email, so bring it on.
Last updated June 30, 2010.