When last we interviewed Molly, her award winning first graphic novel “The Witch Boy” had just come out. Now, 8 years later, she is a big name in the middle grade and young adult graphic novel world. “I proceeded to publish two more books in that series, The Hidden Witch and The Midwinter Witch. It’s honestly very inspired by Wayfinder – the first book was dedicated to Wayfinder.” And she has gone on to write more, achieving a life long goal. “It was always my dream to be an author.”
Molly has also tried on other jobs, “I worked a bit in animation. I designed props for Star Versus the Forces of Evil, which was a Disney show. Then, in animation, I decided that I wanted to write more and be more on the storytelling end of things. So I got a job as a writer on the show The Owl House and wrote some episodes.” The one she is best known for is Enchanting Grom Fright “which was a very cute, gay episode about prom in a demon world. That was a fun and interesting experience to be working on a show that was so big and seen by so many people. And to get to tell this queer story. It was at Disney, which is not a famously progressive place.” We, over here at Wayfinder, are so incredibly proud of the stories Molly is out there telling.
She is striving for something important and magical with her work, something that many of our community members are also seeking: representation of their identities in the media. “Many of us queer people are just like, where are our stories? Where are the stories that help us explore our identities? That aren’t just about coming out of the closet or being oppressed in some way? There’s other experiences that people who are queer have that are unique and individual that are rarely explored in mainstream art. That’s what I’m really interested in with my work. And I’m always trying to find out new ways to talk about queerness and talk about queer love in all its forms: romantic, platonic, familial, self love, the complexities of it. There’s so much more than what we’ve been given.”
Molly was working for Disney, but all the while thinking about her next graphic novel. “I wanted to make a book that was a little bit older than the Witch Boy series, more for young adult readers. I came up with the idea for “The Girl From the Sea”, which is a sapphic teen romance.
It is about a closeted Canadian teen who falls in love with a selkie girl who doesn’t understand why their relationship has to be a secret. It’s a story about coming out and embracing the chaos of life and the transformative power of queer love.” When it came out in 2021, Girl from the Sea landed itself on the indie bestseller list, and stayed there for weeks. Molly aims to create graphic novels that anyone can read “even if it’s their first one.”
After the success of “The Girl from the Sea”, Molly said she wanted to “push myself to go a little bit older. It ended up being this much darker, more emotionally complex story than any of my previous work.” Starting out as a weekly email newsletter, “The Darkest Night”, renamed “The Deep Dark”, was picked up by Scholastic and came out this past June. At the time of this interview, it had not been published and Molly was having lots of feelings about its release. “I’m really excited for it to be out. I’m a little nervous because it feels more raw, and more vulnerable than my other work, perhaps a little bit less polished, but also much more emotionally genuine and very close to my heart.” Having read it the month it came out, like many Wayfinder folks did, I must say it is my personal favorite of Molly’s books.
Besides working on these amazing books, Molly worked for years as a show creator for a pilot for Disney that unfortunately did not make it to screen. Now that she no longer works for Disney, Molly has many other creative projects percolating and I’m sure we will see something new and exciting before long.
During all this work, Molly also had wonderful achievements in her personal life. In 2019 she got married to fellow graphic novelist and creator ND Stevenson. She accompanied him on a magical press tour to promote his movie Nimona, as well as attending the 2024 Oscars. “It was really fun and great to be there with my spouse. I was just really proud of him.” They bought a house and have “a really beautiful garden that I’m in love with.” Molly has been enjoying finding little moments to play, trying her hands at pottery, getting dressed up for ren faires, camping, cooking, doing household repairs and lots of fun travel with her partner.
On one trip to northern Spain Molly and ND got the opportunity to see something extremely special deep in a cave. To get in with their guild they “crawled into this cave, it was crazy because it was through a hole in the ground. And you had to crawl in on your belly. Inside were these 30,000 year old cave paintings! It was this really amazing experience of connection. I’m an artist and foundationally my medium is drawing. So to see that people have been doing this since before we were even homo sapiens was really, really cool and a kind of magical and spiritual experience.”
We have been lucky, the past two summers Molly has returned to camp, which has been as great an experience for her as it has been for us. In reflection of her time since working for Wayfinder in her teens and early 20s, she has found her time at camp has deeply influenced how she approaches interactions with coworkers. “I learned how to be in a work space and how to navigate being on a creative project with other people. We’re all here for this thing that we love. So we need to figure out how to work out any interpersonal things that might come up.” She goes on to say another gift she got from being able to work at camp is “the knowledge of how it feels to make art and then share it with people. Having it be loved and experienced by a group of people. I feel so lucky to have gotten to experience that early because I think I got hooked on it and then was like, all right, I have to do this for the rest of my life.”
On a more personal level, another big takeaway for Molly is something universal. “Having a place where you get to be yourself, even if it’s for one week out of the year – you then get to experience that. You get to learn about yourself.” And she has done the one thing we make sure to tell everyone to try to do out in the greater world which is, bringing connection and essence of play with you. In her life Molly has been working on doing just that. By asking “how can I make more places like this? How do you carry it? In-person spaces where people get to work together, care for each other and be joined by a common interest and a common passion are so powerful. It feels like [a] super power to be someone who knows how to organize an in-person event and knows the power of gathering people. It has a ripple effect on the rest of your life and the rest of the world.” And that is a super power we could all use in this world.
Find more of Molly’s work on her website https://www.mollyostertag.com/
Written by Trine Boode-Petersen from an interview with Molly in spring 2024