In this encore conversation, author and teacher Melanie Brooks and I explore the lifelong impact of silence—within our families, our communities, and our writing lives. Drawing from her memoir, A Hard Silence, Melanie shares how unspoken truths shaped her understanding of grief, identity, and faith, and what it took to finally claim her voice on the page. Together, we discuss how silence keeps writers stuck, the power of finishing the stories that haunt us, and how narrative medicine helped her weave two complex narratives into one.
Episode Highlights
Resources for this Episode:
Melanie’s Bio: Melanie Brooks is the author of A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All (Vine Leaves Press, September 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches professional writing at Northeastern University and creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Bay Path University in Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program. She recently completed a Certificate of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today, the HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from college), and two Labs.
Connect with Melanie:
Website: melaniebrooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melanie.brooks.1690
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melaniejmbrookswriter
X: https://twitter.com/MelanieJMBrooks
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/melanie-brooks-504826121
Book:
Sign up for Revise Your Memoir series: https://bit.ly/4ooLTDi
Get a taste of the series by signing up for Identify Your Memoir’s Essential Question
Connect with your host, Lisa:
Get Your Free Copy of Ditch Your Inner Critic: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/
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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production
