Inspiration Through Tragedy

A Writer’s Journey

By Miriam Chernick

If not for the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, I probably would not have become a writer. When the first plane hit at 8:46 a.m., I was home on maternity leave with my third child, just a month old. We lived in Battery Park City, a residential community across from the WTC in a light-filled apartment. I loved our place for its view of the Twin Towers, whose fall I witnessed that morning.

My family was uninjured, but our apartment was damaged and the neighborhood evacuated, so we moved to a hotel for five months. Within the year, we’d left our beloved Battery Park City and relocated to Maryland to be closer to family and to work through our trauma.

The change for me was sudden and drastic; I’d quit my full-time job, moved to a house with a yard, learned the rules of baseball and soccer, and was driving a minivan every day and everywhere. Another change, a delightful one, was a new daytime schedule featuring the kids: eating, playing, and reading books. Also changing diapers, doing laundry, and…did I mention driving?

Fancying myself a creative type, I started to make up stories, which I’d share with “the sleepy three,” all under the age of five, at bedtime. Though they listened attentively, kids being kids, their responses were honest—brutally so. “That makes no sense,” one declared. “What kind of an end is that?” another asked. Alas, their one-star reviews screamed, “You can’t tell a story!” And they were right.

Humbled, I was determined to do better. A quick search led to the perfect opportunity — a workshop on writing for children taught by Mary Quattlebaum at The Writer’s Center. My story about a girl who rescues an injured pigeon in New York City elicited kind and encouraging comments. I was inspired. I was hooked.

I committed to honing my craft by attending other workshops, joining writing groups, and traveling to conferences. A large file cabinet took up residence in my small office and was soon full of notes and poems and research and manuscripts. Many, many manuscripts. A few pieces made their way to publication, but what I really wanted was to publish a novel, so I went back to school for an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. After graduating in January 2020, confident in my storytelling, I looked forward to polishing my thesis submission and sending it out. It was time to publish a book.

But in March of that year, another traumatic event — the Covid-19 pandemic — intervened. The kids, now young adults I called “the nocturnal three,” returned home. My older brother, born with a rare disease called Prader-Willi syndrome and designated high-risk for Covid, also came to live with us. Quite suddenly, I was busy shopping, cooking, caring for my family and worrying they’d catch Covid, all of which impeded my creative process and plans. I stopped writing. I couldn’t focus. I deeply despaired over being thrust into a new role parenting a disabled sibling. My life, like that of so many others, had turned upside down.

Though I could not concentrate on my YA novel, I resolved to at least write something. Reminiscing with my brother helped me fill a journal with memories from childhood. Talking with him for hours each day had me scribbling scenes from life in lockdown. Then, in December 2020, to escape the cold winter, my husband and I drove my brother to Los Angeles. During that intense forty hours, cozy in our car, a storyline took shape. With my brother’s distinctive voice playing in my head like an earworm, I crafted a teenage character who loves baseball, using my brother’s words and turns of phrase. Then I added a younger sister who loves animals like I do. Both voices came out in first-person point of view.

Writing this new story was therapeutic. It was a way to understand my role as caregiver to my brother. A way to manage the fear of him catching Covid before he could be vaccinated. A way through the cycle of worry that his life was in my hands. Unexpectedly, while my circumstances during the pandemic initially impeded my writing, in the end they inspired a novel told in alternating voices, The Zuzu Secret, out in May 2025 with Charlesbridge Publishing.

In hindsight, I realize that two tragic events helped me become a storyteller, revealing a strong writer’s voice. Tragedy inspired my dream to publish just one book before I die.

Now that my dream is coming true, I’m feeling greedy. Time for another book.