Shanda McManus
Age: 56. Residence: Fair Haven, New Jersey. Book: Brother Epistles: A Sister’s Memoir (Split/Lip Press, June 2026), a tender and forthright memoir-in-letters in which a physician reckons with the lasting impact of her brother’s murder on her life, exposing the fragility of Black lives in America by weaving together personal memories with history and social commentary. Agent: None. Editor: Athena Dixon.
My mother suffered from terminal cancer for much of my childhood, making my chaotic upbringing even more challenging. But by reading books I could escape my hardships and go anywhere. Because of my love of reading, I majored in English in college, but I needed to climb out of poverty so I decided to become a doctor. If economics hadn’t been a factor, I may have continued pursuing literature and perhaps started writing sooner.
The years passed as I became a physician, wife, and mother of five. Reading continued in the corners of my life. The summer I was forty-eight I drove past a lawn sign advertising a community writing class. I joined the six-week course on impulse, making space for myself in a life spent caring for others. For two years I experienced a cocoon of support in my small writers group as I shared short creative nonfiction pieces.
In January of 2020, I decided to take a yearlong course to develop a manuscript-length work. Though I planned to write a memoir, I thought I should practice with fiction first. At the time, I told myself I had to be a better writer before I wrote a memoir, but honestly I was avoiding the difficult emotional work of writing about myself. March 2020 ushered in the pandemic. I was practicing outpatient medicine in the community, facing the unknown, and thought, “I could die.” So I decided to write the book I had to write. I scrapped the work of fiction and wrote my coming-of-age story up until my mother died. When I finished that draft I wanted to talk to my brother, Monir, but he had been dead for almost thirty years; he was the only person who had lived through what I had lived through and lost what I had lost. One letter became many. When a friend found out what I had been writing, she said, “That sounds like another book.”
I drafted and revised Brother Epistles between 2021 and 2022. I took a break for all of 2023. I knew the book was not finished, but I had reached all I could say at the time. Then in 2024 the last letter in the book came to me, and I knew it was complete. I had queried my first manuscript and got a few nibbles but no offers of representation from agents. I decided to try a small press for Brother Epistles and submitted to the Split/Lip Press open call. They publish culturally relevant and boundary-breaking prose, so I thought they might be a good fit. I was delighted by their offer of publication.
As we age we become used to being experts at what we do. I felt pressure to be good at writing right away, maybe even more so as a physician, given that we are often viewed by the world as unusually capable. Also, as a Black woman I found myself in writing spaces that were mostly white, so I felt the pressure of representation. Fortunately I found a writing community that supported me despite our differences. Community is key at every stage of writing. You write alone, but other people help you develop and share your work.
One thing I have learned on my writing journey is that you can be many things over the course of your life but not necessarily all at once. I spent years dedicated to motherhood and doctoring; now I teach and write. I fell prey to the “too late” fallacy from my twenties through my forties. What I know now is your age does not prevent you from realizing your dreams, but you must believe in them first. How old you are really isn’t that deep unless you make it so.
An excerpt from Brother Epistles: A Sister’s Memoir
Dear Monir,
Little brother, I dreamed you got shot at least one year before you did. I saw you standing on the corner of Lindenwood Street with a group of guys. You were just chillin’ in your Raiders jacket and fresh sneaks—maybe Air Jordan 5s. In the dream, there was a squeal of tires. Pop! Pop! Pop like the sound of firecrackers going off real quick in a row. I saw you fall forward—in dreamtime it was in slow motion. I felt the blast as it ripped into your skull from the back. I woke up with a splitting headache and my heart thrumming so hard it felt like it was cracking my ribs. I pressed both my hands on my chest and tried to reach in and still my heart. I don’t know what the dream was—my subconscious or God or some unknown spirit whispering in the dark. Some force let me hear the shots that would destroy a part of me and tried to warn that the unbearable was coming.
I don’t know if you believe in ESP or the reality of dreams. You know what I mean—seeing the future before it happens. Now, I believe, but then I didn’t know what the dream was. So I didn’t warn you. Do you blame me? It’s ok, because I blame myself.
I should have seen it for what it was—the future. But you got to believe me—I didn’t know. Hope you can forgive me for not saving you. Never again, I say to myself. My daughter, twenty-six now, thinks I’m crazy when I call her early in the morning to say I had a dream. I can feel her eye roll and head shake through the phone. Mom, you’re so crazy. Nothing has to happen to her in the dream, just the fact that she was in it puts me on alert. She doesn’t know how what you dream in the night can become real the next day. It’s not only dreams, but I look for signs everywhere. One morning, I came out of my house rushing to get someone off to school and a dead bird, a mourning dove, lay still on the porch. First, I thought, “Did someone put it here?” If not, why did a bird drop dead here right outside my door? Was it a message, a bad omen? I know it sounds crazy, but after what happened I expect tragedy around every corner. Yes, I am paranoid. Remember what Grandmom used to say if we said we were scared?
“If you wasn’t bad you wouldn’t be scared.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe my fear comes from my own bad heart. I mean, you have to wonder if you bring tragedy on yourself, or is it sent from some other place as punishment? But don’t worry, I still manage to live life like the sane person that I may not really be. Yes, I can admit to being a little crazy. Wouldn’t you be if I had died and left you?
But signs I see aren’t always bad. One morning, while sitting at my desk writing to you, I saw a doe and two fawns come out of the woods into my yard. Yes, I live somewhere with yards and trees—no row houses or trash on the sidewalk. No, I can’t believe it either. One fawn was running and leaping around, and the other one was standing by the doe. I thought, that’s like me and Monir. When we were kids, you ran around, got into trouble, and I stood on the side being safe. I took it as a sign to keep writing to you.
Some dreams are not warnings, but something like tasting a wish. Sweet and savory. These dreams let me time travel. Do you think time only flows forward? I think time may be a loop because I keep looping back to you. Maybe we can tour eternity when we dream. Like in this other dream I had years after you died. We are sitting in the basement on Lindenwood Street. Remember how bummy it was—windowless with that musty basement smell? But that was the best place to smoke weed. That’s what we are doing. Sitting and smoking and laughing. I bumped your knee with mine and it was real, I felt you.
I say, “I can’t believe you died.”
You say, “Me neither.”
And then we both busted out laughing.
Dreams make me believe we are more than what we can see and touch. In sleep, I experience another reality. What do you think? I hope you’re a believer because now we only meet in dreams.
Reprinted with permission of Split/Lip Press. splitlippress.com. Source: Brother Epistles: A Sister’s Memoir (Split/Lip Press, 2026).
Photo credit: Sue Barr