Abiola Abrams

Early life and education

She is a first generation Guyanese-American who was raised in New York City. Abrams attended the Brearley School. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Abrams is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was a featured speaker at Alycia Kaback's NYC Women's Empowerment Summit. Abrams is a certified life coach.

Career

In June 1999, Ms. magazine published a series of articles by three generations of women discussing whether Lewinsky's behavior had any meaning for feminism. Abrams was featured, along with Susan Jane Gilman and the sexologist Susie Bright.

Abrams is an author, columnist and blogger in the self-help and love fields. She gives advice on sites such as Match.com, gURL.com and Yahoo! Shine. Black Enterprise magazine named her site one of the top African American lifestyle blogs. Her first writing project, Goddess City, an empowerment play produced at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, was published in the anthology Say Word! by the University of Michigan Press.

Dare (ISBN 1-4165-4166-7, ISBN 978-1-4165-4166-0), Abrams' first novel, was published by Simon & Schuster on December 11, 2007.

Her writing appears in the playwright/activist Eve Ensler's current anthology A Memory, A Monologue a Rant and A Prayer (ISBN 978-0-345-49791-8) alongside such writers as Maya Angelou, Edward Albee, Alice Walker and Edwidge Danticat.

In addition, essays by Abrams will be featured in the upcoming anthologies Behind the Bedroom Door, edited by Paula Derrow, and Dirty Words: An Encyclopedia of Sex, edited by Ellen Sussman. Abrams is the founder of The Goddess Factory, a fun, inspirational movement to motivate and empower primarily women, but also people of all backgrounds, culturally, emotionally, politically and sexually. In addition to her personal blog she writes for several publications and websites.

Television and film

Abrams is a lifestyle and relationship coach currently giving advice on TV talk shows such as the CW Network’s The Bill Cunningham Show. She appeared on WE TV’s Braxton Family Values as herself, interviewing the reality star Tamar Braxton for her web TV YouTube talk show. Abrams also talks about the rules of dating on the Centric show Him and Her Rules also featuring Claudia Jordan, Dr. Jeff Gardere, Dr. Michelle Callahan. Abrams also filmed an episode of Meghan McCain’s Pivot (TV channel) series, Raising McCain named "The Death of Romance" along with the comic writer Phoebe Robinson.

Abrams was a BBC entertainment correspondent from 2011 to 2012 and a former host of The Best Shorts, Black Entertainment Television's (BET) indie film showcase and competition from 2006 to 2008. Abiola also appeared on My Two Cents, a panel-style show also on her network's Centric, formerly BET J. She has hosted or co-hosted such shows as the syndicated The Source: All Access, Source magazine's hip hop show, and Chat Zone, an HBO interstitial talk show billed as "politically incorrect" for the MTV set, and appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a part of his red carpet interview coverage of the 2007 BET Awards in Los Angeles.

In spring 2009, she was featured as the overly selective "Miss Picky", an advice columnist and one of the eight single women seeking love on VH1's reality television show Tough Love. In spring 2011, she starred as a dating empowerment coach helping a geeky teenager find love and become a ladies' man on MTV's reality television show Made. In addition, she has guest starred on TV series such as Law & Order and the soap opera All My Children and appears as a pop culture talking head on networks such as FOX. Her mini-films, documentaries and plays have been shown and performed in galleries, festivals, theaters and museums throughout the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.