Full Biography

Career

Debora started her career working in Washington DC for Senator Gary Hart, Senator Tom Daschle and the pollster Peter Hart (she was then known as Debora Cackler).

For two years she was executive director of the Capital Crescent Trail, a popular 11-mile, mostly paved rail-trail connecting Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Silver Spring, Maryland, via Bethesda.

Debora co-founded the Oxford Channel television station (later called Six TV), a community-focused free-to-air terrestrial television channel in Oxford, England. Within a few months, the station's programming had built a considerable following: over 25% of the potential audience of 500,000 watched each week. Advertising for the station was produced by Tom, Dick and Debbie Productions, also co-founded by Debora Harding.

Later, Debora trained as a restorative justice mediator with Concentric Circles in Texas. She was first victim of a violent crime to enter into mediation with a prisoner in Nebraska.

For five years, she worked as CEO for the independent bicycle business City Bikes which played a major role in promoting sustainable transport in Washington DC which is now a gold status bicycling city. She stepped down after she tragically lost her fourteen-year-old son Kadian Harding.

Writing

Debora Harding is the author of the memoir Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime (Bloomsbury UK / US 2020). The book has been reviewed and discussed in major outlets including the Guardian, Telegraph, Cambridge Review of Books, Hippocampus and New York Journal of Books. She was shortlisted for the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. The book was chosen as Crime Reads and Oxygen book of the year, a starred reviewed by Publishers Weekly and Book Page, and chosen as an Amazon Editor’s Pick.

On 8 January 2024, Governor Jim Pillen signed a proclamation honoring Debora’s book “Dancing with the Octopus” as the selection for that year’s One Book One Nebraska programme.

Debora has written as a journalist for the Guardian, Observer, Unbound, the Daily Mail and other papers. She has given an array of interviews including BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, WOWT television in Omaha, Therapy Works, Bookit and Times Radio.

Personal Life

Debora grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and Laurens, Iowa, before spending a decade in Washington DC and then West Virginia. She is now a full-time writer and activist and splits her time between the United States and England. She holds both American and British citizenship, is the mother of two children, and lives in Hampshire. She is married to British writer, Thomas Harding.