"I applaud anyone out there who's done the book circuit and trying to reach readers, because I'm not in this to make a lot of money, not at all. I just want people to read the story. I kind of felt like I owed it to the book to do my end of this effort. That's kind of fueled me to keep going too," says Shanda McManus, MD, author of Brother Epistles: A Sister's Memoir.

Today we have Shanda McManus. I’m sorry, Dr. Shanda McManus, whose debut book is a memoir titled Brother Epistles. It is a memoir written in letters to her brother Monir, who was murdered in 1992 in a drive-by shooting in Philadelphia. Monir was an Army veteran and when he was out of the army, he was involved in the drug trade and got caught up in a turf dispute. In Shanda’s telling, we learn so much about Monir and you feel the love and the grief nearly 25 years after his death. It’s a wonderful book and you’re going to hear quite a bit about it shortly.

So Shanda, this was nice, this was fun. You’re really going to dig it. She’s an assistant professor of family medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. Brother Epistles, published by Split Lip Press is her first book and it received a starred notice from Kirkus Reviews. Shanda’s writing has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, among other places. She’s got other myriad accomplishments that you can read about at shandamcmanus.com and follow her on Instagram @shandmdwrites.

In this episode we talk about:

How she thinks about promotion
What we owe the book
The apprehension of working with an editor
The lawn sign that changed her life
Post-It notes
Integrating grief
Finding compassion for her younger self
How the story you tell leads you to the form
The guilt of getting out
Food journeys
How place informed her writing
How she shaped the book
Touching the work every day
And the power of reading aloud

Parting shot on some major but minor changes to the podcast, but for now, it’s high time we queue Shanda

Episode 541: 'Touch the Work Every Day' says Shanda McManus

The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara

Episode 541: 'Touch the Work Every Day' says Shanda McManus