Margaret Mandell’s life story is one of adaptation. Earning her BA and MA in History at the University of Pennsylvania, she has been a doctoral candidate and college teacher, mother of two, entrepreneur, independent school admissions director, triathlete, and certified yoga instructor. When her husband of many years passed away, she became a widow, a woman still in the midst of becoming. Her debut memoir And Always One More Time was released by Atmosphere Press in print and audiobook, narrated by the author, in early spring 2024. It tells the story of her next act and new, sustaining love. Excerpts have appeared in The Metaworker, Brevity Blog, NextTribe, Oldster, and the Daring to Tell podcast.
Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
I saw a poster on the wall in 2018, two years after my husband had died, while at the Kripalu Center for yoga teacher training. The poster quoted Maya Angelou: “Have enough courage to trust love one more time, and always one more time.” On page seventeen of my manuscript I wrote, “How, Maya, how do you do that?” It would take years of writing and revision and many working titles until I realized my whole book had been about trusting love again, and now the title seems inevitable in retrospect.
How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?
I wept. I nearly fainted. This is not hyperbole. Hundreds of author copies and multiple bookstore appearances later, my heart still skips a beat when I see that gorgeous swan rendered by Atmosphere Press’s cover designer, Filipe Betim, under the amazing art direction of Ronaldo Alves. Love, death, beauty, ambiguity, metamorphosis: the swan quietly evokes everything that happens in the book, a picture that contains my 35,000 words. Felipe recapitulated the sepia tones of my professional website and told my story in brush strokes. I am merely a debut author, and the swan is already my brand.
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
Epistolary form. I’ve been a letter writer all my life. And Always One More Time is based on a thousand love letters written to my husband after he died. I forever stand on the shoulders of giants, above all on the husband who inspired the letters, and my second husband, my muse who not only loved me back to life but pushed me to finish the book and publish the manuscript. However, without question, my single greatest influence and inspiration was the great memoirist and writing teacher, Beth Kephart, who, as she coached me through writing and revision, taught me about the subtle nuance of language and word choice, tonal shifts in storytelling, slowing down and going deep, finding the emotional core, and creating a narrative arc out of remembered experience. She taught me what memoir is (and isn’t), and, telling me my book “just has to get out there,” recommended that I submit the manuscript to Atmosphere Press. The best advice I could have received.
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I excel at giving men haircuts. Ask my two husbands—one living, one dead—who never paid for a haircut.
I also sing and have sung all my life in choirs.
What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?
The cover design process was enormously challenging and pleasurable, something I’ve never experienced before. Thrilling!
If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?
“Take a Chance On Me” (ABBA)
“I Did It All” (Vince Myers)
“Alleluia” (Randall Thompson)
“On Children” (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?
My greatest hope, above all, is to connect with my readers. All of them, so far, including professional reviewers from Kirkus, BookLife, and Indie Reader, have been “perfect” because they say they are deeply moved by my story and the writing—touched in different ways through the lens of their experience. “Your story is my story,” one says. “You make grief accessible,” another says. “I laughed and I cried, sometimes in the same sentence,” says another. “I wanted more, yet was satisfied,” says yet another. From a bookstore owner I’ve never met: “When I get the privilege of reading a really exceptional book, I feel this sacred silence surrounding me—your book is doing that to me.” Finally, for one reader, the book “incorporates important life lessons we all need to tuck away for future use.” Each of these readers has taken away something important from the book, exceeding my deepest hopes and dreams.
What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?
We write what we know and what we care most about knowing. I am fascinated with how each of us is a composite of all the people who came before us, encapsulated in the question once posed by David Brooks of The New York Times, “How do your ancestors show up in your life?” My next work of creative nonfiction may be a character study of the people in the Continuing Care Retirement Community with whom I now live, based both on my observations and their responses to David Brooks’s question. Because truth is stranger than fiction, and great storytelling is, well, great storytelling.
How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?
Atmosphere Press walks the line so brilliantly between delivering top-notch professional editing, design, and guidance, while giving the author agency and creative control in the process. Never once did I feel it wasn’t “my” book. When they said in their mission statement, “our goal is to make your book awesome,” I laughed at the simple promise of that claim. Actually, that’s exactly what they did. Worth every penny.
Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.