“I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is. I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.”

-said Claes Oldenburg

Who I Am

My name is Chandler Webster, and I’m a Writer based in Atlanta, Georgia. Through essays, reporting, and visual mediums, I explore humanity’s relationship with itself and the natural world.

My Ethos

I’ve always had a fascination with the unknown — with those mythical, unseeable entities that exist just beyond the horizon. This idiosyncrasy carried me to China, where I first visited, as a high schooler, and ultimately moved to, as a new college graduate.

I spent three formative years living in China, studying Mandarin, making lifelong connections, and discovering that the unknown is rarely as inscrutable as it seems. This final realization permeated every facet of my being; today, the understanding that all people share the same wants and needs guides and informs my work.

My pandemic-era exodus from China was revelatory, as it showed me how the systems around us function by design: to the benefit of a minority and at the expense of the majority. Figures like Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Naomi Klein have supplied me with the tools to better understand these institutions, while writers like Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kim Stanley Robinson have given me paintbrushes to imagine brighter alternatives.

These experiences and passions have made me who I am: an intensely curious individual who writes to find meaning, escape, and build a world worth living in.