Mindy Mejia

About Mindy Mejia

Mindy Mejia is a thriller author based in Minnesota who writes about deception, obsession, and violence in the American heartland. She came to fiction writing through journaling and years of unfinished manuscripts before earning a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Hamline University—an experience she credits with teaching her how to finish a book and how to find her way to publication. She is also a practicing certified public accountant.

Writing from the Middle

All of Mejia's novels are set in the Midwestern United States, a deliberate choice that reflects her belief in the dramatic potential of so-called flyover country. "People reveal themselves when they think no one is looking," she has said, "and that's where the best stories live."

Her debut thriller, Everything You Want Me to Be (2017), is a mystery that unwinds backward from the murder of Hattie Hoffman—a high-achieving Minnesota teenager who wore a different face for every person in her life. Told from three perspectives—Hattie's own diary, a local detective, and her high school English teacher—the novel explores performance, identity, and small-town secrets. It was praised for its sharp structure and its refusal to reduce Hattie to a victim.

Later Work

Mejia has continued writing twisty, character-driven thrillers. Leave the Living (2019) follows a woman who wakes from a coma with no memory of the last year of her life—including the accident that put her there. Strike Me Down (2020) is set in the world of professional kickboxing and centers on a forensic accountant (a nod to Mejia's day job) investigating millions in embezzled tournament prize money.

Her writing draws on the landscape and culture of the Midwest not as backdrop but as character—the flatness, the insularity, the particular way that communities can close around a secret and hold it for decades.