Author: Mandy Webster

Amanda L. Webster is the author of If You Didn't See It Coming, One Bad Cat, Demons of the Night, DIY High, Valley of the Bees, and F-ing Freddy Fisher. She is also a writing teacher who lives part-time in a sorority house.
Writers on Writing

Creepy characters we love to hate (and secretly can’t)

Mandy Webster

There’s something fascinating about a character who creeps you out, makes you uneasy, or shocks you with their actions—but somehow, you can’t bring yourself to hate them completely. These are the villains and morally gray characters who blur the line between right and wrong, forcing readers to wrestle with their own sense of judgment. They unsettle us, intrigue us, and make our hearts race, which is why they are perfect companions for October reading.

Sure, she’s pretty. But there’s also something uncanny about her. Do you trust her?

In thrillers and suspense novels, some characters are written to be frighteningly clever, ruthless, or unpredictable, yet their motivations or circumstances make their actions feel, at least in part, understandable. In How to Kill Men and Get Away with It by Katy Brent, the protagonist’s cunning and dark choices are chilling, but her perspective invites empathy and even admiration for her ingenuity. Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen and This Girl’s a Killer by Emma C. Wells present characters whose morally questionable or violent actions are layered with complexity—making you uneasy, yet unable to fully condemn them.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Blood, sisterhood, and sanity: Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen #spooktober

Mandy Webster

If you’re looking for a haunting, atmospheric read to carry you through the end of #spooktober, Johanna van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue offers the perfect blend of gothic unease and creeping dread. Set in the Netherlands in 1887, this novel follows Lucy, whose twin sister Sarah has fallen into a disturbing illness that blurs the line between madness and possession. As Sarah’s behavior becomes more erratic—and more violent—Lucy must decide how far she’ll go to protect her sister, even as something monstrous seems to take hold of her.

Get your copy of Blood on Her Tongue from my independent online bookstore today!

The story unfolds in shadow and candlelight, in grand halls filled with whispers and secrets. Van Veen’s prose feels appropriately decadent and claustrophobic, wrapping the reader in the same feverish confusion that grips Lucy. The decaying corpse unearthed on Sarah’s husband’s estate provides more than a physical mystery—it becomes a mirror for the moral rot beneath the surface of polite society, particularly the suffocating gender expectations that hem Lucy and Sarah in.

Continue reading “Blood, sisterhood, and sanity: Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen #spooktober” →
Author Interview

Author interview with Johanny Ortega

Mandy Webster

Author Johanny Ortega weaves her Dominican roots, love of classical music, and fascination with the supernatural into stories that explore identity, heritage, and the complexities of family. Her upcoming novel, The Ordinary Bruja—releasing November 4, 2025—invites readers into a world of dark magic and self-discovery, where one woman must face the haunting legacy of her ancestors. In this interview, Ortega shares how her grandmother’s influence shaped her storytelling, why representation remains central to her work, and how she balances creativity with the realities of indie publishing.

Get your copy of The Ordinary Bruja from my independent online bookstore today!

Q: What/who were your early literary influences, and how do you think their writing has shaped you as a storyteller today?
A: I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, and my grandmother raised me. She was a big advocate of literature and education. She believed that it was a way out of poverty. While I resisted at first, once I got a hand on reading, it opened a whole new world for me, and I hadn’t left that world ever since. My grandmother was not an author, but she influences tremendously what I write about and how I write. I proudly represent my background in my book as an ode to her and my beginnings.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Finding her voice: The Writing Room by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

Mandy Webster

In The Writing Room (releasing November 4, 2025), Marcia Argueta Mickelson delivers a powerful coming-of-age story about finding your voice, claiming your space, and learning that silence in the face of injustice is its own kind of complicity.

Get your copy of The Writing Room from my independent online bookstore today!

Eighteen-year-old Maya has just graduated high school when her wealthy, self-satisfied father kicks her out of his New York City apartment to “make her own way.” With her mother living in Guatemala and her father’s emotional abuse still echoing in her head, Maya spends the summer sleeping on her friend Yoly’s couch while she works, writes, and counts the weeks until she can move into the dorms for college. Her life changes when she gains access to a shared workspace known as “the writing room,” a place that gives her both the structure and sense of community she’s been missing.

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Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Be My Weird/Wyrd Valentine

Mandy Webster

Love has always had a dark side—and we want to see yours. Elderfly Press is now accepting submissions for Be My Weird/Wyrd Valentine (working title), an anthology exploring the uncanny, unsettling, and sometimes downright horrifying side of romantic relationships.

We’re looking for stories, poems, essays, and black-and-white art that dive into the strange corners of love and desire—where passion turns perilous, intimacy hums with unease, and devotion blurs the line between beauty and terror. Whether it’s romance that defies reality, affection tinged with dread, or longing that transforms into something unrecognizable, we want work that lingers in the mind and twists the heart. Let the strange, the eerie, and the passionate collide—show us the love that frightens, bewilders, and enthralls.

Continue reading “Call for Submissions: Be My Weird/Wyrd Valentine” →
Call for Submissions

Now accepting book-length submissions

Mandy Webster

At Elderfly Press, we are committed to publishing bold, literary works that unsettle, provoke, and linger long after the final page. We seek book-length fiction and creative nonfiction that confronts the hidden violence of the world—psychological, social, or supernatural—and gives voice to stories that challenge the patriarchal status quo.

We are especially drawn to:

  • Literary thrillers and suspense novels with a sharp edge.
  • Horror fiction that unsettles through atmosphere, voice, or psychological depth.
  • Creative nonfiction—including memoirs—that could be read with the intensity of a thriller or horror novel.
  • Works that expose the dark underbelly of the patriarchy, pulling back the veil on power, violence, and survival.
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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

When going home means facing the ghosts you tried to forget: Do Not Follow by Surbhi Bansal

Mandy Webster

Returning home after years away can feel like stepping back into a life you no longer recognize. In Do Not Follow by Surbhi Bansal, that homecoming forces one woman to confront the choices, expectations, and silences that have shaped her entire life.

Get your copy of Do Not Follow from my independent online bookstore today!

Seema, once a promising surgeon, is now a consignment store owner living far from the path her family imagined for her. When her father dies, she returns to Albany after seventeen years to help her mother sort through their family home. What follows is a deeply emotional story about grief, identity, and the unspoken costs of cultural and familial duty.

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Writers on Writing

The psychology of fear in literature and why we can’t look away #spooktober

Mandy Webster

There’s something irresistible about a story that makes our hearts race and our palms sweat, even when we know we’re perfectly safe on our couch. Fear in literature taps into a deep part of our psyche, and understanding why we seek it out can make us appreciate the stories that haunt us even more.

Why do we love to read spooky stories, especially in October?

Fear works in books because it connects to emotions we experience in real life: anxiety, uncertainty, and the unknown. When we read a thriller like Her One Regret by Donna Freitas, we feel the suspense of a character navigating danger and deception, our brains mirroring their tension as if it were our own. Horror, on the other hand, like Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan or Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce, introduces us to scenarios that feel uncanny or impossible. Our minds grapple with the unknown, the supernatural, and the morally unsettling, creating a lingering sense of dread.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Pam Kowalski is a Monster! by Sarah Langan — When memory lies and the world unravels

Mandy Webster

There’s something deliciously unsettling about realizing your memories might be wrong. Sarah Langan’s Pam Kowolski Is a Monster! turns that unease into a full-blown psychological and supernatural meltdown. This novella barrels through themes of memory, trauma, and rivalry with the manic energy of an apocalypse that might already be happening — or might only be in the mind of its unraveling narrator.

Get your copy of Pam Kowolski is a Monster! from my independent online bookstore today!

Janet Chow’s life didn’t exactly pan out the way her classmates might have predicted back at Sewanhaka High. Once destined for greatness, she’s now middle-aged, adrift, and licking the wounds of a career in journalism that has long since crashed and burned. Then she spots her old nemesis — Pam Kowolski, the girl she used to despise — who has somehow transformed into “Madame Pamela,” America’s psychic sweetheart and doomsday influencer. Pam is rich, beautiful, and adored, while Janet is invisible. Convinced that Pam’s fame is built on lies, Janet sets out to expose her as a fraud. But digging into Pam’s past also means unearthing the pieces of her own history that she’s conveniently buried — and the deeper she digs, the more she starts to question what’s real, what’s remembered, and what’s imagined.

Continue reading “Pam Kowalski is a Monster! by Sarah Langan — When memory lies and the world unravels” →
Author Interview

Author interview with ROAMING

Mandy Webster

With a voice that drifts between myth and memory, ROAMING’s work feels like stepping into a dream where beauty and terror walk hand in hand. Their narrative poem J’ai Besoin De La Morte, featured in Bad Moon on the Rise: An Anthology of the Unsettling, captures that delicate balance perfectly. In this interview, ROAMING discusses the influence of authors like Holly Black and Angela Slatter, the intertwining of art and myth in their creative process, and how they’ve learned to embrace the chaos of storytelling as both a mirror and a calling.

ROAMING’s work appears in the recently released Bad Moon on the Rise: An Anthology of the Unsettling.

Q: What/who were your early literary influences, and how do you think their writing has shaped you as a storyteller today?
A: Holly Black. She’s the Queen of Faerie. I first read The Spiderwick Chronicles when I was eight or nine, then got into her Modern Faerie Tale series, and have absorbed everything she’s put out since. Her writing was what taught me that things can be beautiful and terrifying, which is something I’ve carried forth into my own writing.

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