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It Has to Be Read. • A Hard Silence by Melanie Brooks

Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with teacher and author Melanie Brooks, exploring her work and the themes of her book, A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all.


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Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023), shortlisted for the 2024 Memoir Prize from Memoir Magazine, named a 2023 Foreword INDIES Finalist, and Winner of a Bronze Medal in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today,  Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. Though she is still a proud Canadian, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university in Toronto), and chocolate Lab.