Amy Condra is a former journalist whose work as a reporter and editor earned her multiple Virginia Press Association Awards and the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism’s Multimedia Editing Fellowship. She has extensive experience as a freelance writer, and has ventured from Saigon to Hanoi to research and write two books on Vietnam published by Gareth Stevens.
When Amy shifted from publishing to public service, she retained the passion for communication she experienced working for Knight Ridder, McClatchy, Media General and Morris Communications. At the Government Accountability Office, she served as the managing editor of the International Journal of Government Auditing. In this role, she represented the Journal at auditing conferences in Peru and Samoa, covering key topics such as anticorruption initiatives and resilience to climate change.
As the communications lead for USAID’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, Amy visited remote project sites in Nepal, Rwanda and Moldova to document and highlight the agency’s efforts to ensure equitable access, opportunity and benefits for all. She has also provided strategic communications guidance and support to the Department of Defense Education Activity, the U.S. Navy’s Naval History and Heritage Command, FEMA and the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service.
An aspiring novelist, Amy currently serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime, an organization founded to address disparities experienced by women crime writers. Over the years, the mission of Sisters in Crime has expanded to advocate for all marginalized authors within the crime writing community.
One of Amy’s earliest writing project has remained one of her favorites: while studying history at Loyola University in New Orleans, she wrote “Sarah Josepha Hale: Making Female Education Fashionable,” published in the Loyola Student Historical Journal. This work has been cited by the National Women’s History Museum’s exhibit on women and education, referenced in numerous American history books and included in course materials used by the University of Massachusetts and McGraw Hill Education.
Motivated by the desire to tell stories that are honest and engaging, Amy is currently working on a suspense novel set in Juneau, Alaska.