keondra bills freemyn

keondra bills freemyn is a writer and memory worker with a background in digital archives, collaborative data, Black history, social movements, and cultural production. She is founder of the Black Women Writers Project, an independent digital initiative supporting discoverability and use of institutional and community archives collections highlighting the contributions of Black women and gender expansive creatives. keondra has worked on oral history, digital transcription, and metadata projects centering BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities with the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, New York Public Library, and the People’s Archive at DC Public Library. Prior to transitioning into full-time archival work, keondra spent more than a decade in public service as a Peace Corps volunteer, US diplomat, and international policy analyst promoting community-based environmental stewardship and conservation. keondra is author of the poetry collection Things You Left Behind and has scholarly work featured in the forthcoming anthologies Black Librarians in America: Reflections, Resistance, Reawakening and The Evidence: Black Archivists Holding Memory. keondra is an SAA Digital Archives Specialist, an alumna of Fordham University (BS) and Columbia University (MPA), and holds a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University. She will complete her MLIS at the University of Maryland College Park in August 2021.