I started telling stories before I could even write. I used to draw pictures for my Mom, and then draw the same picture but slightly altered as the story progressed. I distinctly remember two stories I would draw over and over again. One was a little stick man mowing his lawn (I took great pleasure in making his grass grow tall again!), and the other was a tornado (carefully drawing those walmart plastic bags flying through the air was one of my favorite activities!).

I was a homeschool kid through and through, and my parents curated my curriculum to include all things creative writing. We did a number of different things over the years, culminating in the One Year Adventure Novel. I wrote a handful of children's books through the various creative writing courses my parents provided for me, and I wrote my first full length novel around the age of 12. I had a dream about a young girl serving others in Africa, and when I woke up I knew I had to write it. I have yet to actually publish that first foray into "real" writing, but I am deeply fond of those characters.

When I was seventeen, I wrote my second novel--first called Lucy's Tale: A Robin Hood Story. I wrote it entirely by hand that first time. It was a month of inspiration and excitement, and as soon as it was done, I set to work writing the next one--The Story of Gisbourne. I was obsessed with my Robin Hood characters and the world I'd created, and I couldn't put it down. Over the course of the next year and half, I polished my original story, creating what would become Lucy's Legend.

In December of 2014, at nineteen years old, I self-published Lucy's Legend. In the following years, I published 4 more Robin Hood books, and my dystopian trilogy Finding Hope.

In 2020, I switched from writing under "Amanda Grace" to "Mandi Grace" and published my sequel Robin Hood series, Return to Sherwood.

Throughout all the years of writing and self-publishing my books, I was constantly reading books on craft and on business and learning how to be an author-prenuer and to hone my storytelling skills. In 2021 I joined a writing community--Quill and Cup--and leveled up my writing skills a hundredfold with webinars, retreats, workshops, and the accountability of that wonderful community of authors.

And that's where I was when I decided to re-do my OG "Amanda Grace" novels and bring them under the "Mandi Grace" brand. So in 2022, I pulled out Lucy's Legend and the rest, and dusted them off, and gave them a powerful make-over. Each book became roughly twice as big as it had been originally, each story arc was sharpened, each character deepened, and the result was a beautiful retelling of the story teenage me had set out to write. In 2022, I republished Lucy's Legend as The Legend of the Thief (along with the rest of the Robin Hood series). Those are what you read now when you pick up my books.

In 2024 the first of my dystopian trilogy got a re-make, and I am hard at work finishing the republication of the second and third books in that series.

When I'm not rewriting my old books, I'm cultivating what will become a 4+ book fantasy series inspired by Arthurian legends--Knights, dragons, betrayal, and magic! I am eager to share Maziah's story with the world! So stay tuned for that...