Abby grew up in Idalou, Texas. Her loyalty to her home state remains constant, even though she, like the Texas legislators who left the state to prevent quorum on a discriminatory redistricting bill, finds it necessary to be away, most recently in her case for nearly twenty years.

Before leaving Texas, Abby studied English and Philosophy at Texas Tech University, and co-founded the Buffalo Writers Collective (where she workshopped her poetry) and the Yellow House Press, an alternative newspaper. Her duties there included editing the poetry feature, writing music and film reviews and food columns, and negotiating fees and deadlines, once in the hospital with a typesetter whose legs had both been broken by gangsters. She continues to use all of these skills in her teaching, where fortunately the need for extended deadlines is seldom as extreme as in this case. Not unlike Philosophers on Holiday, the Yellow House Press made money hand over fist, and yet Abby managed to tear herself away for further lucrative ventures such as grad school. While at TTU she also gave birth to her daughter Lauren, became friends with Pat, who is now her life partner, and studied and taught Composition.

Grad school entailed Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as the best potlucks of her life, with one disastrous exception involving a bag of lentils, a pack of lefsa, and a bunch of celery. She lives in Takoma Park Maryland (named "the leftiest burb anywhere" by Utne), and since 1993 has taught at George Washington University, initially in the Writing Program, later in Women's Studies as well. Currently she is (1) starting work on an academic book called Refusing Diagnosis, and (2) trying to remember how to integrate poetry writing into academic life.