While there she worked as a freelance journalist, submitting articles to the Maoriland Worker under the pseudonym Manda Lloyd.

Despite being popular in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom, it received a somewhat hostile response back in New Zealand, where critics disapproved of the novel's unconventional themes.

Alistair Fox has argued that The Story of a New Zealand River was a significant influence on the film The Piano (1993) by Jane Campion.

She wrote numerous essays and short stories, and acted as a London correspondent for multiple New Zealand newspapers.

In March 1937 Mander gave hand-corrected typescripts of four of her novels - The strange attraction, Allen Adair, The besieging city and Pins and pinnacles - to the Library.

In the early 1970s Dorothea Turner arranged donations of personal papers, travel documents, radio talks and newspaper and magazine clippings (including otherwise hard-to-locate short stories) from Mander's sister, Amy Cross.