Responses from religion authors and publishers came almost immediately after the terrorist attack. Morehouse Publishing had planned to publish When Suffering Persists by Frederick W. Schmidt Jr. next spring, but is now rushing the book to press for November release. Morehouse imprint Trinity Press International has on its backlist Making Sense Out of Sorrow by Foster McCurley, a Lutheran minister, and Alan Weitzman, a rabbi. Said TPI editorial director Henry Carrigan, "It's a pocket-sized book that provides a way through all the stages of grief that people will be dealing with. Unfortunately, sales always spike around events like this."
Debra Farrington, director of marketing at Morehouse, also passed along an account from Douglas Brown, prior of the Episcopal Holy Cross Monastery, who was in Trinity Church in lower Manhattan at 8:30 a.m. on September 11. The church, one of the oldest buildings in Manhattan, is just a block and half away from the World Trade Center. Brown recounted seeing the rain of office paper after the first impact, taking shelter in the building's stairwell with his group and the screaming children from the church's day-care center and, finally, fleeing to the street and running north as the towers collapsed. Part of the Trinity complex is the Trinity Bookstore.
Plough, the publishing arm of the Bruderhof Community, released Explaining Death and Suffering to Children, a statement by Johann Christoph Arnold, author of Endangered: Your Child in a Hostile World, which is available as a free e-book at www.plough.com/endangered.
Tommy Nelson, the children's division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has posted on its Web site seven topics to guide parents as they talk to their children about what happened. Provided by child development specialist Mary Manz Simon (Jesus Is with Us), the tips can be accessed at www.tommynelson.com. Tyndale Kids has also created special content on its Web site, www.cool2read.com, designed to help parents, teachers and kids cope with the tragedy.
Meanwhile, Thomas Nelson author Jack Hayford, whose How to Live Through a Bad Day was released just a week before the attack, is being called on for comment by a variety of news outlets, both Christian and secular. Said Pamela Clements, Nelson's v-p of marketing, "That book seems sadly prophetic now." Nelson is giving away caseloads of that and other titles to radio and television stations to distribute to their audiences, but, added Clements, the company and its employees are doing other things they prefer not to talk about. "We don't want to use this to promote ourselves. We have a number of books that will help people, and we're just trying to get those into the right hands."
Zondervan is offering a special edition of Philip Yancey's classic Where Is God When It Hurts? at a deep discount—or, in cases of need, free—to consumers, with all of the proceeds earmarked for the Red Cross. Copies in print are now at 700,000.
Though many book tours and author appearances have been canceled in the wake of the tragedy, W Publishing Group is going ahead with tour plans for Max Lucado's newest book, Traveling Light, based on Psalm 23, which President Bush quoted in the aftermath of the attack. It was released September 4. However, the October tour will now include "prayer and encouragement" events in each of the six cities, beginning with New York (September 30, October 1) and Washington, D.C. (October 1—2). W has also created prayer guides that will be distributed free at the events and made available online. Lucado is a pastor in San Antonio, Tex., and, said W marketing v-p Allen Arnold, the revamped tour will allow the author to be pastoral at his appearances. Lucado also has written a prayer for the nation that was set to run as an ad in USA Today on September 21. The ad is being paid for by Lucado's ministry, Upwords, and a small group of donors.
