Writer. Physician. Advocate.
A SISTER’S MEMOIR
(2026)
BROTHER EPISTLES
In 1992, my brother Monir was killed in a drive-by shooting in Philadelphia. He was 20 years old. Thirty years later, overcome with a desperate need to just talk to him, I started writing him letters. Telling him what I remembered. Asking questions I never got to ask. Sharing what my life has been like in the three decades since he died.
The letters became a reclaimation. For so many years, whenever I thought of my brother, I thought of his murder, not him. The liminal space of this book became a way to see him whole again, not just as a victim of homicide, but as my brother who was funny and complicated and so very loved.
And as I wrote, I got back the brother I missed so much, and understood why he died and why he was not to blame. How the systems that failed our family, that failed him at every turn, made his death almost inevitable.
This book, both an intimate personal narrative and a social commentary, calls for an American reckoning of the ongoing crisis of homicide of young Black men.
WEATHERPROOF
As a family medicine physician with over twenty years of experience and as a Black woman, I am dismayed by the continued disparity in health outcomes for Black women. Black women are more likely to die from heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. We have worse pregnancy outcomes than all other ethnic groups. This stark divide persists even at higher educational and socioeconomic levels. I suffered from preterm labor complications during my pregnancy and later developed high blood pressure despite all I know as a physician.
In 1992, Arline Geronimus coined the term “weathering” and hypothesized that Black women’s bodies were constantly forced into fight-or-flight responses due to structural racism and oppression. These chronic stressors made Black women more likely to experience poor health outcomes. My newsletter, Weatherproof, provides curated health and wellness information tailored to Black women to help combat this phenomenon.
And because I write and love stories, especially stories about and by Black women, Weatherproof features books, poems, and other readings each week.
My newsletter is free. Subscribe below to learn how to weatherproof your life and body.
