To deal with the vast range of powerful emotions after the September 11th attacks, many New Yorkers turned to writing. Putting pen to paper helped them to work through some of the frustration, sadness and disbelief that were perhaps the most indelible marks left after that tragic day. Some of these writers were spectators who lost close friends and family in the Twin Towers. Others were direct victims of the attacks. One woman, Lauren Manning, wrote an incredible autobiography of her experience on that luckless day, and the subsequent years of her survival and transformation.

TWO YEARS LATER: FOLLOWING UP; Amid the Enduring Tears, Survivors Working Hard to turn a Page

Even in her workout clothes, she looks elegant, her bright blond hair fashionably cropped, her bright blue eyes meticulously made-up. She lies back on a piece on gym equipment, grabs the handles on two pulleys and grimaces a bit as she pulls and pushes against the weight. She does a lot of repetitions. But this is not a gym, it is a hospital. It is where Lauren Manning still spends most days, working fiercely to overcome the injuries she suffered on Sept. 11.

AFTER BURN INJURIES, SEPT. 11 SURVIVOR SHOWS 'STRENGTH'

No company suffered on Sept. 11 as much as the bond broker Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 people. One of the few employees to survive that day was Lauren Manning, who was in the lobby of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when the first plane hit.

MIRACLE TALE FROM THE TOWERS: LAUREN MANNING

“Normally I’d have been at work at the analyst desk in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on the 105th floor of the North Tower by 8 a.m., but that day I was running late, so it was about 8:45 when I headed into the lobby.”

ELLE READERS’ PRIZE PICKS: OCTOBER

On September 11, 2001, Manning was enveloped in a massive fireball of jet fuel. While it took much of her skin, a few digits, and nearly her life, the flames also fired up her amazing inner toughness. 

THESE 10 BOOKS ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11 ELEVATE AND ENLIGHTEN

We read—to make sense of complex history, to grasp tectonic cultural quakes around the globe, and to mourn lives cut short amid fire and ruin.

LAUREN MANNING: After Months in a Coma, Quickly Walking and Laughing Again

For an international symbol of hope and courage, Lauren Manning turns out to be a lot of fun — and often very funny. Mrs. Manning, who was engulfed by a fireball in the lobby of 1 World Trade Center while on her way to work on Sept. 11, refers to the time she spent in a coma as “that three-month hiatus when I was napping.” Her most recent operation at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she spent months in the burn unit and in July had surgery on her shoulder, was “five days back in the Big House.” And when her husband, Greg, says she can now sing as well as she used to — her voice is becoming far less hoarse — she is quick to point out that “he’s deaf in one ear.”

LAUREN MANNING: A WILL TO LIVE

Ten years after September 11, Lauren Manning remembers her harrowing near-death experience, and her battle to survive.

BEST BOOKS ON 9/11

“Intense, humbling, Manning’s story is, above all, amazing.”

LAUREN MANNING AT BOOKHAMPTON

A standing-room only crowd of readers, friends and well-wishers turned out in Sag Harbor on September 4th for Lauren Manning’s debut book signing for Unmeasured Strength, her memoir of healing from injuries sustained on 9/11.

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE INJURED; First, She Managed to Live; Now Comes the Harder Part

In a season of sorrow for so many, some glad tidings: Lauren Manning lived, after all. On Sept. 11, Mrs. Manning was engulfed in a fireball and burned over most of her body as she entered the north tower of the World Trade Center. She prayed to die, she told her husband that day, but then decided to live, for him and for their year-old son.

SURVIVOR FINDS HER INNER STRENGTH

NEW YORK – A decade after nearly being burned alive at Ground Zero, Lauren Manning has learned to live with “my new normal.” Or, as she says, “I dwell in an imperfect place, but it feels just right to me.”

THE CHILDREN OF 9/11: A LEGACY OF HOPE

“I wish I was the one who got Osama, Mom.” Lauren Manning, author of the new book Unmeasured Strength, was gravely injured in the World Trade Center attacks. We asked her to share how her battle to live shaped her son Tyler’s life.

Lauren Manning tells the story of her near death experience on 9/11 and her subsequent ten-year journey of survival and rebirth.

A DECADE AFTER 9/11, ONE SURVIVOR'S TALES OF A MIRACULOUS RECOVERY

Most Americans will pause on the upcoming tenth anniversary of 9/11, taking a moment out of their year to reflect on the meaning of that tragic day. But Lauren Manning has lived with the aftermath of that event every minute of every day for the past decade.

A NATION CHALLENGED: SURVIVOR; 6 Months Later, Scarred but Very Alive

She still has a long way to go. But when Lauren Manning says she is going to be just fine, you have to believe her. After all, she has beaten the odds before.

A 9/11 SURVIVOR TELLS HER STORY

On the spectacular September morning when two passenger jets tore through the World Trade Center towers in a heretofore unimaginable act of terrorism, Lauren Manning happened to be in the lobby of the north tower when it was hit by the first plane. Waiting for an elevator that would take her to the 105th floor, where she worked for financial-services company Cantor Fitzgerald, Ms. Manning had heard a piercing whistle and attributed it to construction noise—but then she felt the building quake and a fireball flashed from the elevator bank like a blast from hell, engulfing her.

LAUREN MANNING REMEMBERS 9/11 AND EVERYTHING THAT CAME AFTER – CULTURE

Vogue caught up with the author of Unmeasured Strength to discuss the importance of writing the book, her approach to parenthood, and the legacy of 9/11 ten years after the attacks.

CITY ROOM: CONVERSATIONS ON THE EVE OF 9/11

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

A burn center’ director remembers the days after the attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and a victim plans to be out of town on the anniversary, as usual.

WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK SURVIVOR LAUREN MANNING: A LONG ROAD BACK TO HEALTH

Striding across the lobby of a Manhattan high-rise, she exudes the confidence she once routinely projected as a senior vice president and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm that lost 658 people on September 11, 2001. That day as she entered the building, a fireball raced down the elevator shaft and blasted her back out, burning more than 82% of her body. Doctors gave her just a 15% chance of surviving.

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE INJURED; A Fireball, a Prayer for Death, Then an Uphill Battle for Life

This is the story of a woman who decided to live. No one knows yet if she will. Her name is Lauren Manning, and on the morning of Sept. 11 she had just walked into the north tower of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. She was engulfed in a fireball.

THEN & NOW: LAUREN MANNING

(CNN) — On September 11, 2001, a fireball engulfed Lauren Manning as she arrived to work at the Twin Towers. Now, after suffering burns to more than 80 percent of her body, and being given a 10 percent chance of survival, Manning is nearing the end of physical therapy and savoring every moment of a life nearly lost.

UNMEASURED STRENGTH

A Tower One fireball left 80 percent of her body burned. This Cantor Fitzgerald managing director wasn’t expected to survive, but she fought her way through “unimaginable pain” to rebuild her body and her life.