Debut
Brittany Means
Brittany Means was born dead and then lived for a while in a car and then later in a huge black barn out in the cornfields of rural Indiana. A graduate of Ball State University and the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, her debut memoir, Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways, earned a Kirkus starred review and was picked as a Best Book of Fall 2023 by PEOPLE magazine. Currently, Means lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she keeps chickens, edits, and watches many many horror movies.
2024 Debut Winner and Nonfiction Shortlist: Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways
Brittany Means’s childhood was a blur of highways and traumas that collapsed any effort to track time. Riding shotgun as her mother struggled to escape abusive relationships, Brittany didn’t care where they were going—to a roadside midwestern motel, a shelter, or The Barn in Indiana, the cluttered mansion her Pentecostal grandparents called home—as long as they were together. But every so often, her mom would surprise her—and leave.
As Brittany grew older and questioned her own complicated relationships and the poverty, abuse, and instability that enveloped her, she began to recognize that hell wasn’t only the place she read about in the Bible; it was the cycle of violence that entrapped her family. Through footholds such as horror movies, neuropsychology, and strong bonds, Brittany makes sense of this cycle and finds a way to leave it.
While untangling the web of her most painful memories, Brittany crafts a tale of self-preservation, resilience, and hope with a unique narrative style—a sparkling example of the human ability to withstand the most horrific experiences and still thrive
