Mandy Erickson
freelance writing and editing

Mandy Erickson began her college career at the University of Pennsylvania, but grew homesick for California and transferred to U.C. Berkeley, where she completed her bachelor's degree in 1987.

Mandy returned to Berkeley for the Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned her master's in 1990.

After graduating, Mandy interned for a summer with the San Francisco bureau of The New York Times, assisting the staff reporters on campaign stories, features, and breaking news.

She then took a six-month internship with the now-defunct Daily Ledger-Post Dispatch in Antioch, California, where she covered education, from kindergarten through community college, and the local hospital.

In 1991, Mandy took a job at the Tri-Valley Herald in Pleasanton, California. She covered mostly city council news, but also wrote about water issues, migrant farm workers, and racial tensions in the local high school.

After two years, she switched to the copy desk, copyediting local and national stories and writing headlines. The Herald soon after merged with The Oakland Tribune, and Mandy became the copyeditor of the newspaper chain's business pages.

Mandy moved to Wired magazine in 1994, where she worked as a copyeditor and eventually ran the copy desk. She also wrote articles. She left Wired in 1997 to strike out on her own.