Nancy Gibbs reflects on writing the cover story for the award-winning black-bordered special issue many people still have saved today.
I was living in Bronxville, New York, on the"writer's block" . Ordinarily, I would have [already] been heading into Midtown [Manhattan] to the Time & Life building [on the morning of September 11, 2001], but my husband had broken a bone in his hand that weekend and I was taking him to see the doctor, so we were both at home when the phone rang. It was Michael Duffy,bureau chief in Washington. I picked up the phone and he said,"Turn on the TV.
Everyone in the Washington Bureau fanned out to the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies. And everyone in New York fanned out to head downtown, head to the hospitals, head to city hall, police departments. Then correspondents around the country and in major world capitals started reporting on responses of foreign government and communities and leaders around the country. It was a complete all-hands.
I had a [home] office that was a converted sleeping porch with windows on three sides and a 20-foot high vaulted ceiling, where all of my stray thoughts could just float up and get trapped. I think my husband made many pots of coffee. He just checked in like,"What do you need? Do you need fuel? Do you need water?" People at work were trying to make sure I was getting what I needed and also not bother me.
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