Newsletter – September 11, 2026
PHOTO: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Everything changed on 9/11 twenty-five years ago today.
My wife called me into the bedroom to see a New York building burning on TV. How did the fire start? Has everyone gotten to safety? Isn’t that one of the twin towers? So many questions unanswered on the newscast.
Then a plane plowed into the second tower. We quickly rushed our four-year-old daughter out of the room to get her ready for school. What was happening?
I don’t have to tell you, of course, you’ll be swamped today by people’s memories and memorials, Thousands of people died that day. My little family was watching it all from a distance in Wisconsin.
I spent most of the day at Carthage College preoccupied with my classes, grading homework and working on the play I was directing. When I went to acting class, I saw Matt who had recently signed up for the army to get his schooling paid for. I asked him if he had been called. Not yet, he replied. The students chose not to go ahead with class so they could spend time on other things. We all wished Matt well and went our separate ways.
I did hear from Matt later that year. He sent me a card from boot camp. He didn’t have much to say.
TTFN
* * * * *
I’m not writing much this week because my spare time has been taken up with details and decisions about the design of Verses Versus Curses, my book of children’s poetry I told you about two weeks ago.
We’re down to the little but important issues like the choice of title font and the pagination inside the book. For example, we don’t want the reader to have to flip pages back and forth to see the poem and the illustration, we want the reader to see them both at once on facing pages.
I’m looking forward to showing you more soon!
* * * * *
My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 