Artist Spotlight: Becky Mandelbaum
“Teachers have been everything to my development as a writer. They’ve been the sun, water, and soil to my growth.”
Becky Mandelbaum is the author of THE BRIGHT SIDE SANCTUARY FOR ANIMALS and BAD KANSAS, which received the 2016 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the 2018 High Plains Book Award for First Book, and was a Kansas Notable Book in 2018.
Her work has appeared in One Story, The Sun, The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Necessary Fiction, Hobart, Prairie Schooner, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and has been featured on Medium. She has received fellowships from Writing by Writers, a residency from The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and was a finalist for the 2019 Disquiet Literary Prize in Fiction. Originally from Kansas, she currently lives in Bellingham, Washington.
1.) Tell us a bit about your “art origin story”? When did you first fall in love with your art?
I think I fell in love with writing—the physical procedure of putting pen to paper—before I even learned the alphabet. I would make loopy squiggles on paper and pretend I was an important businesswoman signing documents in cursive. My interest in storytelling came a little later, once I could properly read and write. I made books and illustrated them, gave them to my mom. I think most writers have memories like these. The love never went away.
2.) What role have teachers played in your development as an artist? Any one stand out?
Teachers have been everything to my development as a writer. They’ve been the sun, water, and soil to my growth. I had amazing teachers throughout my entire education—an incredible third grade teacher who made us write books about Beanie Babies, a seventh-grade teacher who introduced me to poetry, and several high school English teachers, plus my debate coach, who encouraged my writing in various ways. In college and graduate school I found mentors who similarly guided me on my journey, offering advice and teaching me not only how to write, but how to create a life around writing. I’d be nowhere without them.
3.) What advice would you give to young folks thinking about pursuing an education or career in the arts?
Don’t give up. That means don’t give up on making art—there will be times you want to give up, plenty of them—but also don’t give up on the kind of art you want to make. Hold on to why you love what you do, and don’t let other people touch it. That part is yours, and it will keep you going, guiding you in the right direction, but you must continue to nourish it, to pay attention to it. Don’t let the noise of the world drown it out.
4.) When did you realize you wanted to pursue being an artistic person not only personally, but professionally? How did that change your drive to do it?
I don’t think I’ve ever had this realization. Pursuing art professionally simply means you find a way to earn a living around your writing, so that you might keep doing it. It buys you time, space, freedom. I don’t think any artist starts working with the thought: I’d like to make something beautiful to sell to someone else. You just want to make something beautiful, or maybe you just want to make, period. I’m still not sure I want to write professionally, but I want to write, and so the professionally part makes it viable.
5.) How do physical locations inspire your artistic expression? Any places that make you feel especially creative?
Place is such a huge part of my work. I’m inspired by setting whether it’s a mountain peak or a basement in the suburbs. I grew up in Kansas, and that setting has yet to exit my imagination. It’s a bottomless well I still pool from, even though I’ve been gone for years. In terms of creativity, I think the feelings I associate with a place are much more important than any physical qualities. I’m inspired by the people I knew, the memories I built, and how I felt while I was there. Place is about so much more than mountains, cityscapes, or forests. It’s about emotional context—that’s the part that interests me.