Author Interview: Mandy Webster

On resilience, purpose, and finding your voice.

Jul 30, 2026

Mandy Webster is an author, editor, and all around good human. I wanted to highlight her in this most recent author interview for a number of reasons. I met Mandy at the Louisville Book Festival in 2024. She became my first, official, “author friend”. Of all the authors I met at that festival, she was one of the most receptive when it came to making and maintaining connections with other writers. It’s clear that she values relationship building, and seems to appreciate the importance of building up other authors. She and I have since become members of a MasterMind group with other writers from around the country. She makes a consistent effort to interview authors for her website, and to provide detailed, in depth book reviews, which you can learn about below. Not only that, but she is the editor of Elderfly Press, which frequently publishes anthologies of short fiction, poetry and art.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

The Interview

1. Introduce Yourself: For readers who are new to you, how would you describe yourself as a person and as a writer?

A lot of who I am as a person revolves around being a reader and a writer. I’ve been immersed in storytelling my entire life. I grew up in a very rural area in Illinois that I swear to this day is stuck inside a time warp that keeps everyone who lives there trapped at least 25 years in the past (sounds like a great premise for a novel, right?) So, I often feel like I was brought up in an earlier era than I actually was. This is one of many influences in my life that I feel brings me a different perspective than the average person has. But then again, I think we all have that. Even though we may have similar stories to tell, no one can tell our individual stories in quite the same way that we can.

I have lived almost a century now, and it’s funny how often I find myself in conversation with younger people who see me only as who I am today without it ever occurring to them that I may have lived other lives. And I have lived so many lives in the past five decades. It’s really kind of insane when I look back at it. I spent some time in the military, was in an abusive marriage for ten years, lived in five different states, raised two kids in poverty while working to “pull myself up by my own bootstraps,” – which, by the way, isn’t actually possible; no one gets anywhere in this cruel world without some kind of support – went to college part-time forever, changed careers multiple times, and have even ran for and held a public office. I am always ready to dive into something new, and my family is probably shaking their heads every time I come up with a new idea and just jump on it.

When I was a kid, there was this little lean-to tacked onto the side of the house that my father grew up in. My grandma raised thirteen kids in this three-bedroom house and had somehow managed to carve out “a room of her own” within this tiny space. This was where she kept her books and journals, and none of us kids were allowed in there without her permission. I was the quiet kid who could be trusted to sit and look through Grandma’s wall of National Geographic magazines unattended without making a mess, and I spent a lot of time doing just that.

I remember flipping through those magazines and dreaming of seeing the world. At that time in my life, before anyone had begun to tell me what “people like us” are expected to do and be as grownups, I dreamed of being a writer for National Geographic magazine someday. I wanted to travel the world to meet the subjects of these stories myself. When I think about who I am at my core, I would say that I am an adventurer and a wanderer, even if I haven’t quite been able to live that life I once dreamed of.

2. Books & Themes: What kinds of stories do you love to tell, and what draws you to those themes?

I was brought up in an insular community where outsiders were always viewed as suspicious, and I have always felt like I was one of those outsiders. I was one of those “gifted” students who everyone else thought was soooo weird. And I probably was inside a community of people who wanted nothing more than to conform and fit in. Of course, there were times when I wanted to fit in too, but it was always like trying to fit into a coat that was at least two sizes too small for me. I eventually found that I didn’t want to fit in if it meant being just like everyone else. I wanted to get out into the world and explore it. I wanted to experience new things and decide for myself how I felt about how the world works, and that is something that I often explore in my writing.

Of course, many of the themes I explore come out of my own experiences of the world. In all of my books, there is some sort of societal commentary, whether I am exploring family violence, poverty, or patriarchy. Unfortunately, I have experienced all of those things myself, but those experiences make my work richer. I try to use my own pain and frustration with the systems that bind us to show the world what it is like to live these experiences. You can read all the nonfiction that exists on these topics and intellectually know what it is like, but nothing can make you experience it yourself quite like fiction will.

3. Origin: What first drew you to writing, and what keeps you coming back to it?

I come from a family of storytellers. Large gatherings were often rife with aunts and uncles, and particularly my dad, laughing and telling stories about life. During family visits, the women would gossip, often whispering about the latest tragedy or drama that had befallen one relative or another. On those occasions, I perfected the art of sitting quietly in the shadows as the grown folks talked. If they noticed I was there, they would shoo me away to play outside. I loved to play outside, but when there were stories to be overheard, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

When I was in elementary school, I was identified as a “gifted writer.” I was the only student in my rural school who qualified for the program, so once a week, the district’s gifted writing teacher would drive all the way out to my school just to meet with me one-on-one. I’ve had many disadvantages in life, but this was one time when I had the privilege of having someone devote themselves to me in such a supportive environment. I really began to see myself as a writer during these sessions.

Unfortunately, once I aged out of the gifted writer program, that would be the last time I would get such positive reinforcement for my writing for many years. There would even be years when I didn’t write at all. But when I did finally return to it, I found that I had a lot to say. All the books I have written so far have been my way of saying those things.

4. Emotional: What has been your biggest emotional hurdle as an author, and how did you work through it?

In the time and place where I grew up, a woman had two choices in life: pick a husband or pick a factory to work at. If you picked a bad husband, then you’d get to do both. “People like us” didn’t do things like this. Even going to college was aiming too high. When I was in high school, I never once had a guidance counselor talk to me about anything other than what classes I was taking the next semester. No one talked to me about college or encouraged me to take the ACT or SAT (though I did take the ASVAB with everyone else and apparently scored extremely high on it). I wasn’t from a family that sent their kids to college, so as far as my high school was concerned, I just needed to get my diploma and get out of their hair.

I did eventually go to college and even earned two masters degrees, so I guess they were wrong about me. But it took me a long time to realize that I had internalized certain assumptions about myself and what I was capable of that were 100% wrong. When I did go to college, I studied business. I didn’t care for it. It wasn’t what I was meant to be doing. Even as I pursued a masters degree in business management, I knew it wasn’t for me. But it was “practical.” Or at least that’s what I told myself—that’s what everyone else told me too.

Supposedly, I was going to get a high paying job once I got that master’s degree, and then I could stop struggling and maybe write stories once in a while as a hobby. But that high paying job never materialized. It turns out that the people getting those high paying jobs are usually the ones who went to college straight out of high school as traditional students and did unpaid or low paying internships that helped them get their feet in the doors that would lead to the high paying jobs. It was all about who you knew, and I didn’t know anyone. It was something I would never be able to do as a full-time employed mother who had kids to feed and house. I was met with roadblocks at every turn, almost as if The Universe was trying to tell me something!

After I finished my first master’s degree, I realized there was no way I could make my student loan payments and feed my kids. Around the same time, I heard about this creative writing program at a local college. To be honest, it was the idea of putting off paying my student loans as long as possible that lured me into the program just as much as the idea of finally pursuing writing. As someone who is actually good with money, there was a part of me that knew on an intellectual level that it was a dumb idea. The loans would have to be paid eventually. But I wanted it so bad. And honestly, that’s what it boiled down to in that moment. I had been stuck in a violently abusive marriage for a decade, and every second of my life was lived for what everyone else wanted and needed. For once, I wanted to do what I wanted. So, I applied to the program.

Within the first semester that I was in my creative writing graduate program, my marriage finally ended. Everything that I had previously known began to fall apart. It was hard at the time, but looking back, I can see that this was The Universe telling me that it was about damned time… about time I followed the path that was set out for me rather than the path everyone else wanted me to follow. It hasn’t been an easy path. There has been struggle all along the way. But it is a meaningful struggle. And I have become more ME with each step I have taken down MY PATH that I am clearing FOR MYSELF.

Oh, and about those student loans: I would end up working in public service for the ten years required to earn student loan forgiveness. It turns out The Universe does provide for those who follow their true path!

5. Mental: Was there a mindset shift or habit that helped you go from aspiring to actually publishing your work?

Just being able to finish writing a novel was the one thing I needed to figure out. Once I realized how easy it was to publish independently, I knew that was the direction I wanted to take. Even though the traditional business world wasn’t for me, I do have an entrepreneurial spirit that made me want to be in charge of my own destiny as a writer. I also love tinkering and working on “projects.” I was practicing publishing before I had ever finished writing a novel. I started by gathering all the poems I had written over the years and published them as Loosely Collected: A Book of Poems. Publishing was fun, and I wanted to do more. But I needed to finish writing a novel before I could publish one!

I learned a lot in my graduate writing program, but one thing I realized that I had never actually learned was how to finish writing a novel. My creative writing master’s thesis had grown to around 150,000 words, but there was no end in sight. If I had wanted to spend the rest of my life writing one story like Geroge R. R. Martin, I was off to a good start. But that’s not what I wanted. So I needed to stop being a “pantser” and learn how to outline a novel.

I then set myself a challenge to write a 16-chapter novel in 16 days without worrying about whether it was any good or not. I first outlined a story (settling at 16 chapters because that’s how many plot points I had outlined) and then made a plan to execute the writing. I rearrange my entire life for those 16 days to make sure I had time first thing each morning to write a chapter. They were short chapters that would later need a lot of work, but that was fine. The important thing was that I got an entire story out on the page, and that was a huge accomplishment.

The resulting novel, Valley of the Bees, would bear little resemblance to that original 16-chapter story, but it was a huge step in my evolution as an author. It was so essential for me to develop a process that I could follow from one writing project into the next. Without having developed this process, I don’t think I would have ever published as many novels as I have.

6. Spiritual: Does writing feel connected to a sense of purpose or deeper meaning for you?

I do believe that this is and always has been what I was meant to do with my life. I hope that the stories I have told have helped people in the ways that I imagine they should. If nothing else, I hope that I am leaving a legacy for my children and nieces and nephews and anyone else who may come up behind me. I especially hope that they see me living my purpose and learn that they can do the same, whatever their dreams may be.

7. Relational: How have relationships — with family, friends, or writing peers — supported or challenged your journey?

My ex-husband once helped himself to my private journals in the early days of our marriage and read some things about himself that he didn’t like. I had figured out that I had gotten myself into a terrible situation that was going to be difficult to escape, and I was documenting the abuse as I tried to make a plan to get out. He burned all of my journals and forbade me from writing at all anymore. He was like a pestilence that had invaded every aspect of my life, and there was simply no way that I could continue to write without creating a dangerous situation for myself.

It soon came to a point where I despaired of ever escaping. He had made it clear that he would kill me if I tried to leave. For years, I truly believed that the only way out of my marriage was if one of us left in a body bag. So it’s strange that he even allowed me to apply for a creative writing program near the end. I think by then he was so secure in his control over me that he thought I wouldn’t dare to write anything that he wouldn’t approve of.

The funny thing is, once I entered this program, I began to stop following his rules. I bought a new journal and began to write my truth inside its pages. I hid it in plain sight, knowing that it wouldn’t occur to him that I would just leave something like that lying around. And then he went and imploded the marriage all on his own, and I was finally free to learn how to be me again. And who I am is a writer.

While there have been challenging relationships, I have also had some really supportive relationships. I met and workshopped with so many great writers in my creative writing program at Mount Mary University (Milwaukee). I later taught a creative writing workshop at my local community college after I moved back to Illinois, and there I met the writers who would become part of my core writing workshop group. I’m not sure I would have come as far as I have without their feedback. I truly believe that a trusted workshop group that both supports you and tells you when you’re wrong is an essential tool in becoming better at the craft.

8. Lessons Learned: Looking back, what would you tell your earlier self about staying mentally and emotionally resilient as a writer?

This is what you’re meant to do. So just do it. That’s it. Just do it.

9. Parting Wisdom: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer new indie authors about nurturing themselves as much as their writing?

Your stories are important. No one else has the same stories to tell that you have, and your perspective is just as important as anyone else’s. If this is what you are meant to do, you will find a way. Just ask yourself each morning, “What is one thing I can do today that will move me one step closer to where I want to be?” and then do that thing. It doesn’t have to be a huge step. Just do something. Even the tiniest steps add up to long distances over time. Enjoy the journey instead of agonizing over how far away the destination appears to be.