Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters, which was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015. Her third novel All the Pain We Endure was released by 1455 Press in November 2026. Melanie was a licensed massage therapist for fourteen years and currently serves on the Development team at My Sister’s Place, the first domestic violence shelter in Washington, D.C.
Featured Work
All the pain We enduRE
Melanie S. Hatter’s All the Pain We Endure follows Raebelle “Rae” Johnson, a biracial massage therapist in Washington, D.C., whose unusual ability to glimpse the pain carried by others has made her acutely aware of the wounds people hide-and determined to keep her own buried. Still haunted by a volatile relationship with her father and wary of the vulnerability intimacy demands, Rae has learned to protect herself by keeping others at a distance. But when she meets Kai, a martial artist carrying wounds and secrets of his own, their growing connection begins to challenge Rae’s assumptions about love, strength, family, and what it means to truly know another person. As their relationship deepens, Rae is forced to reckon with a past that refuses to remain safely contained. Family tensions, buried trauma, and generations of racial pain converge, revealing how profoundly the injuries of one generation can shape the lives of the next-and how difficult it can be to distinguish the pain we inherit from the pain we choose to carry. At once an intimate love story and a searching exploration of family, race, trauma, identity, and healing, All the Pain We Endure asks whether confronting the past can free us from repeating it—and what it takes to break cycles of pain, risk vulnerability, and believe ourselves worthy of love.
Five Questions for MElAnie hatTeR
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My experiences as a massage therapist greatly influenced All the Pain We Endure. I thought the book was going to be a collection of massage stories, but Rae’s story grew and took over.
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For me, it’s always the characters that come first and they guide me through the story. What I enjoy the most is learning who they are and figuring out the story.
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A good day is taking a long walk in nature with my dog, having some writing time, relaxing in the evening with family, and reading a good book before going to sleep.
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As an only child, I spent a lot of time alone and developed an active imagination; I also found company in books and was an avid reader; and being biracial gave me a deep curiosity about identity and culture.
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The favorite part is seeing my work in the world and getting feedback from readers. My least favorite is the promotional work involved in getting the book into the hands of readers—but, of course, it’s a necessary part of the work.
