And Always One More Time: A Memoir received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Margaret Mandell.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
And Always One More Time: A Memoir, published on March 12, 2024, by Atmosphere Press.
What’s the book’s first line?
“I am swimming laps alone in my brother’s infinity pool in Kiawah, South Carolina.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
The loss of a life partner strikes over one million new women every year—shattering the present, leaving the future in doubt. At 65 years old Peggy Mandell lost her husband of 45 years to a fast-moving disease. And Always One More Time poignantly captures that loss while making a winning case for unexpected wisdoms, new love, and a still dynamically unfolding self. Wise in the ways of C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, suspenseful in the tradition of Joyce Carol Oates’s A Widow’s Story, and as universal in its truths as Steve Leder’s The Beauty of What Remains, And Always One More Time offers hope in the aftermath of greatest loss. At 35,000 potent and swift-moving words, it can be read in a single setting, much like George Saunders’s Congratulations, By the Way.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person?
My late husband, Herbert E. Mandell, M.D., inspired me to write the love letters upon which the book is based. An event? The event was the trauma of his death. My current husband, John Crothers Pollock III, Ph.D., to whom the book is dedicated, inspired me to keep going and does so to this day. He is the inspiration for the book’s title based on Maya Angelou’s immortal words, “Have enough courage to trust love one more time, and always one more time.”
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Any reader would be inspired by the author’s humility and resilience facing “the worst thing that can happen” (the loss of a loved-one) and at the same time be warmed by this love story about two extraordinary men, one living, one dead. Life for all of us is a tale of attachment and separation, and this author, through unvarnished self-disclosure, offers a blueprint for navigating both while touching the heart. “I laughed and I cried,” early readers have said, “sometimes in the same sentence.”
When did you first decide to become an author?
After the death of my mother in 2018, who had been telling me for over 70 years—well, since fourth grade–that I should write a book. I always told her, “No, I will not write a book until I have something to say.” Now I have something to say.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
Yes.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
In my retirement after 20 years as a private school Admissions Director, I became a certified yoga instructor and teach regularly on burnalong.com, an online health and wellness platform. Teaching yoga is storytelling and self-discovery, and I put as much care and thought into writing my class descriptions for the site as I did when composing chapters for my book. The second chapter in the book is titled, “One Yoga Pose at a Time.” Readers can find a forthcoming interview on Substack between Sarah E. Webb and Margaret Mandell in which the intersectionality of yoga and writing is explored.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
At least one hour a day, often more, first thing in the morning (the love letters were all written at 4:30 am).
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Best: creative control and complete responsibility for every word and every decision from editorial to design to book promotion, including investing all of your resources, both time and money, in order to give birth to something wholly your own. Hardest: all of the above.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
Keep going. If you don’t, then you don’t want it badly enough. Another thing I wanted badly was to record the memoir as an audiobook in my own voice, a process which required time, money, and a very steep learning curve akin to learning how to write a first manuscript or publish a first book. The audiobook, produced by Michelle Redo of Flying Pig Audio, will be released on Audible and everywhere audiobooks are sold by mid-April.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Nothing is foreclosed; this author considers any and all opportunities. Publishing is transactional, a business. So now, as an author, am I.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
Fame and fortune are elusive, ephemeral. I write to connect, to touch another’s heart. I weep when a reader tells me, “Your story is my story, too.” Then I think, this is why I wrote the book. Originally, I wrote 1,000 daily love letters to my deceased husband to connect my broken, beating heart with his, and to honor all that he was. Next, I transcribed the letters onto my computer to give to our children, so they would know how much I loved their father as they, too, grieved his loss. Finally, when I engaged a writing coach to help me turn the letters into a book, because, she said, “There is such a love story here,” I discovered the universality of my journey and my message, and suddenly, I was no longer writing for myself but for readers longing to be moved and inspired (and entertained!) by my story. The task of revision and rewriting was grueling, and I did not give up until a second writing coach told me, “This is a book that must be out in the world.” My manuscript was immediately accepted by Atmosphere Press, which receives roughly 900 submissions a month and accepts 30 for publication. I would recommend Atmosphere Press to every indie writer in a heartbeat. If, at first, they don’t accept your manuscript, try again. It’s worth it.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
Margaret Renkl, who touches everyone with her vulnerability and fierce love, which I am told, are my most salient qualities as a writer, too. Margaret is my spiritual mother (and namesake!).
Which book do you wish you could have written?
The Comfort of Crows.