Mandy Farmer Interview Published on: 09, Sep 2025

I have always loved children and animals. I used to make up stories while i did my chores on the farm. Then, as an adult, I was leading and teaching children. I started writing plays for them to perform for the church. Funny thing, I never expected to be a writer. I didn't do all that well in my composition class in college. :)

It all happened by accident. I was doing things to learn about the publishing process because I was writing a devotional. I met a gal who was writing a course for kids on self-publishing and I offered to be a beta tester. In doing that, Holly the Holstein was born!

The types of farms that I grew up on are fast going away. Most farms are no longer run by a family but large corporations. They have 1,000 of cows and usually millking 24 hours a day. It just takes that long to milk that many cows. I treasure my childhood on the family farm, and I would like to keep that spirit alive. My books help keep that alive. I hope I'm doing for the 20th century what Laura Ingalls did for the 19th century.

Between the two Holly books, I wrote a storybook about a family whose mother had fibromyalgia. This is also loosely based on my life. My illustrator for Soft Hugs for Mommy came up with that idea. I was a big hit. So I thought it would be a great addition to this book as well.

They really are completely different topics, but they are both dear to my heart. Typically, I am working on one for a while and then switching to the other. It somewhat just depends on the inspiration at the moment.

As far as writing it, the words just came forward. The troublesome part was the illustrations. I hired someone who also deals with a chronic illness so that the feelings would come out in the pictures. Folks with chronic illnesses have to take things slow and easy to keep from having what is called a flare or crash. At times in our process, we had to stop and rest, but the Type A part of me wanted to get it finished. I had to learn the skill of patience.

My book offers questions at the end to help with the communication process. I had the help of a child psychologist in developing the appropriate questions for this section.

Melissa and I were already friends and colleagues as pastors' wives. She shared some artwork on Facebook one day. I was impressed so I reached out to her to see if she might be interested. Though I went against advice given for using someone who doesn't know the ropes of book publishing, Melissa went the 2nd mile in learning all the ins and outs about publishing with art and also about what resonates with kids.

I started with a list of questions that I thought would be appropriate. Dr. Bensgton is also a fellow colleague as an author, so I reached out to her and asked if she would help me develop the right questions with the right wording. She was more than happy to do it.

I'm sure that it is a major motivation behind my writing. Like I mentioned, I didn't consider myself a writer, but after chronic pain hit and we could get the pain somewhat under control, I started writing my story to encourage others in my shoes. I received so much positive input that I finally decided it was time to publish my work. Certainly, my voice also comes from 25+ years of teaching children.

Oh, that's difficult to pinpoint. Working with children has been the highlight of my life. I always tried to keep things light and fun. This is probably why my stories have silliness pop up from time to time, such as, "brown cows don't make chocolate milk."

I would love to see child psychiatrists using my book as a stepping-off point in their therapy sessions. Children love stories and colorful pictures. They will relate to some, if not all, the situations the littl girl shares. I believe the story can open communication about their feelings on the subject.

I have a lot of ideas running through my mind. I could share a lot of stories from my childhood from the viewpoint of the cows. Perhaps an all day visit with Holly to see how her day goes from morning to night. I could also have her go to the fair or a cattleshow.

Just start writing. Start a blog and write about what you know. You might be surprised what shows up.

I love the support they give and the connections with other authors. Their book cover contests are quite helpful for exposure to new groups of people.