Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick is a retired metro daily newspaper feature writer and columnist, and the author of four published books. Two years ago, she and her husband moved from Florida to Castle Pines, exchanging sandy beach views for Rocky Mountain vistas. It was, she says, a most satisfactory trade.

SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?

Fitzpatrick: When I first considered writing a memoir about my 9/11 experiences and the toll it took on my health, I thought of it in the context of national history as well as family history. It occurred to me that if I had had a great-grandmother who witnessed, say, the battle of Gettysburg, and rushed toward the horrific fighting as it was happening, and if she had run to the very edge of the front lines, heard shots fired, watched men fall, and in so doing nearly lost her life, and if my great-grandmother carried a pencil and paper, and if she was a professional journalist, a describer, wouldn’t I want her record of that day? 

That is what fueled my hopes that future generations of my family will read my memoir and come to a fuller understanding of that world-changing event.

SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?

Fitzpatrick: The excerpt comes at the end of Chapter 6 in the memoir, a chapter that includes a minute-by-minute account of what I witnessed in Lower Manhattan between dawn and midnight on 9/11. Earlier chapters reprise highlights of my newspaper career and the glorious excesses of Fashion Week runway shows. Later chapters chronicle how I dealt with PTSD after 9/11 while struggling with a demanding career and family issues.

UNDERWRITTEN BY

Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.

 I selected this excerpt because it describes what was happening in various areas of Manhattan, gives context to the geographic place, and attempts to end the day on a somber but hopeful note. 

SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?

Fitzpatrick: I included several chapters about my journalism career, and especially the celebrities I encountered while covering Fashion Week (before and after 9/11). People love reading about the rich and famous. Later chapters deal with elder-care issues during my parents’ final years, and the challenges that confronted me and my five siblings. For those chapters, I relied heavily on  nearly 3,000 contemporaneous family emails that I archived.

SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?

Fitzpatrick: When I finished what I considered to be a completed memoir, I sent the manuscript to a half-dozen beta readers who knew me well during the years covered in the book. They helped me realize that I needed to be more forthcoming about the end of my career. 

Then, in the hectic weeks before the book made its debut, the editors at Bedazzled Ink Publishing convinced me to describe the ongoing effects of PTSD on my professional and personal life. These revisions, though difficult to put into words, made the story far stronger than it had been.

SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?

Fitzpatrick: One big challenge early on was the fact that two of my brothers did not want their names in the memoir, not the names of their family members or the names of the successful businesses they founded.

“Recorder of Deeds”

>> Read an excerpt

Where to find it:

SunLit present new excerpts from some of the best Colorado authors that not only spin engaging narratives but also illuminate who we are as a community. Read more.

Ultimately, after much soul-searching, I agreed to shield their identities even though that took the account one small step away from pure nonfiction. I explained that at the beginning of the memoir in an author’s note.

SunLit: If you could pick just one thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers would take from this book, what would that be?

Fitzpatrick: Cherish every minute of your life. Treasure your loved ones. Make every day count as if it could be your last … because it could. Trite sayings. But take it as free advice from a fashion writer who never, ever thought she would serve as a war correspondent. 

SunLit: In a highly politicized atmosphere where books, and people’s access to them, has become increasingly contentious, what would you add to the conversation about books, libraries and generally the availability of literature in the public sphere?

Fitzpatrick: Ever since art was created with fingers on Ice Age cave walls and cuneiform symbols were impressed on clay tables, ever since whole belief systems were set down on papyrus and Gutenberg printed a Bible on a cobbled-together mechanical press, mankind has told its ongoing story. 

Then along came Michael Hart, who typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer in 1971, making the first e-book available on the Internet. If not progress, exactly, then it surely is a naturally evolving process. And so, even as I order print and e-books from Amazon,  I mourn the passing of corner bookshops and community libraries unfettered by arbitrary censorship. 

SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?

Fitzpatrick: I write at home, on a computer, with an ergonomic keyboard and a big monitor. With apologies to the late Sister Marcella Joseph, who years ago labored to elevate my penmanship from blotchy scratchings to the lovely, looping ascenders and descenders of the Palmer Method, I cannot comprehend what I have written if I have written it in longhand.

SunLit: What did you intentionally leave out of your memoir?

Fitzpatrick: All the good stuff. Nah, kidding.

SunLit: Tell us about your next project. 

Fitzpatrick: My husband and I are co-researching and writing a book for our children and grandchildren. We identify six people from history who share our last names, whether or not they are our direct ancestors, and describe their fascinating lives with words and vintage photos. 

One was a heroine of the Titanic sinking. Another was a Dust Bowl bank robber. Yet another landed a stolen, single-engine plane on the streets of Manhattan − twice – to win a bar bet. So, that was fun. The goal is to compile the stories in a readable, entertaining collection for limited distribution.

 A few more quick questions

SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing? 

Fitzpatrick: Writing, hands down.

SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of? 

Fitzpatrick: I suspect it was my first published story during my first real journalism job, as a reporter at the Hannibal (Missouri) Courier-Post. I have no idea what the story was about, but I’m certain I clipped a first (and only) edition copy of the piece and sent it to my parents.

SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing? 

Fitzpatrick: Thomas Jefferson, Pearl S. Buck, and Lauren Groff.

SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?

Fitzpatrick:  “I hate writing. I love having written.” Dorothy Parker

SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?

Fitzpatrick: That I need to purge!

SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?

Fitzpatrick: Silence. But I am working on the ability to write in complete sentences while my husband has a televised Broncos game blaring in the background.

SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment? 

Fitzpatrick: Anything by George Winston.

SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?

Fitzpatrick: At the end of my sophomore year at Creighton University, I was thinking about possibly, probably, perhaps majoring in Speech. At the time, my older sister was finishing a journalism degree at the esteemed University of Missouri. 

All year, I had written long letters to Pam from Omaha and tried to make them as lyrical or funny as I could. My sister rarely answered. But one day I received a postcard from her. On it, she had written this: “Hey kid, you can write. Why don’t you come on over.” I did. And I never forgot those two short lines that changed my life.

SunLit: As a writer, what do you fear most? 

Fitzpatrick: Inadvertently wavering verb tenses. Also, adverbs.

SunLit: Also as a writer, what brings you the greatest satisfaction? 

Fitzpatrick: Rereading something I wrote long ago, and realizing it wasn’t half-bad.

This byline is used for articles and guides written collaboratively by The Colorado Sun reporters, editors and producers.