Author
Mandasue Heller
Born in Warrington, Mandasue Heller spent many of her childhood years performing in am-dram productions, appearing in plays and pantomimes, and singing in an Old Tyme Music Hall troupe. This love of the stage carried through to adulthood, and at 18 she began to tour working men’s clubs with her country & western band, Missouri Sunshine. She joined Equity during that time, and regularly appeared in such shows as Coronation Street, Brookside, Albion Market, Watching, Boys From The Blackstuff, etc.
After moving to Manchester in the early 80’s, she immersed herself in the underground music scene, fronting an original rock band, and session-singing for various blues, soul, and jazz bands. Forced by illness to temporarily quit singing in the 90’s, she turned her hand to writing, using the notorious Hulme Crescents, where she had spent her first 10 years in Manchester, as the backdrop.
Her first written piece concerned a real-life incident, when a man had broken into her house in the early hours and attacked her as she lay sleeping with her 10 week old son in her arms. He hit her on the head with a claw-hammer, fracturing her skull and leaving a 5” gash. But it was the psychological after-effects that affected her most deeply, and she hoped that writing about it would exorcise the hold it still had over her. The finished piece was too personal for anybody else to read, but she had enjoyed the process of writing, so decided to try her hand at fiction instead - and her first book, The Front, was snapped up by Hodder & Stoughton. She has written 13 books since then, and is currently working on the 14th.
Mother to 3 grown children, and grandmother of 3, Mandasue still lives in Manchester, and spends her time between books and family commitments locked away in the studio, writing and recording music albums with her producer/musician partner, Wingrove Ward.