At this year's American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors convention in Chicago, editors from daily newspapers in New York City, North Carolina and Florida shared their accounts of how their features staffs covered residents' reactions to the Sept. 11 attacks. Feature sections have reflected the wave of fear and patriotism that has flooded the nation since the September attacks. They gave readers a deep look into the complexity of the human condition, and they helped their newspapers provide a complete, accurate account of how shock, grief, pride and perseverance took hold in their communities.

Newsday features editor Barbara Schuler gave a hometown editor's account of the dramatic shift that happened in her newsroom the morning two jetliners smashed into the World Trade Center towers. Her newspaper dedicated wrap-around sections for the first week of coverage, and the feature section contributed with stories about the disaster's effects on Broadway theater, the reactions of the local faith communities and makeshift memorials.

"(We wanted) to take the story forward and to help our readers make sense of this story, as much as anybody can make sense of this story," Schuler said.

Felicia Gressette, features editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., explained how her reporters covered stories hundreds of miles from the epicenters of terror. The Raleigh staff wrote about residents who used art therapy to cope with anguish, military personnel who rushed weddings in light of the events and a high school band that passionately struck up the Star-Spangled Banner before a high school football game.

In Florida, features writers took similarly intimate angles, said Suzy Fleming, assistant features editor at Florida Today. Her newspaper's disaster action plan, formulated to organize coverage for local events like hurricanes and space shuttle explosions, quickly dispatched reporters to learn what was happening at ordinary places around town.

Writers at the Melbourne-based daily told stories about grounded crop dusters, comfort foods and the psychology of rumors. The features desk contributed much to coverage of the terrorist tragedy, even lending copy editors familiar with innovative techniques to the main news section editors.

Features writers and editors were the first ones on the job because they are the journalists are in the newsrooms in the morning, Fleming said.

"In the newsroom, you kind of feel like the step child some of the time, but it seemed like the whole newspaper kind of rallied around us," she said.

Michelle Krupa is a journalism student at the University of Maryland in College Park.