For Breanna Mroczek, the fascination with September 11, 2001, began in junior high. It was her “where were you when…” moment. Twenty-five years later, that lingering curiosity has bloomed into a new chapbook Can We Be Funny? Why Start Now? Weird Pop Culture After 9/11, exploring the tragedy’s complicated, strange place in our shared cultural history.
When Matthew Stepanic launched Agatha Press in 2024, he approached Mroczek to write a chapbook. Initially, she hesitated. She was busy, and she worried about the sensitivity of the tragedy. Was it too soon?
In a word, no. And Mroczek is presenting the fruits of her labour at LitFest, Edmonton’s annual non-fiction literary festival, running Oct. 14-18. LitFest is working with Agatha Press to bring a panel discussion about identity from recent chapbook authors Mroczek, Dawn Carter and Beth Murray.
“Have you seen the comedy Hacks?” Mroczek asks. On the HBO show, a character makes a joke about booking a show on 9/11, illustrating that a quarter-century later, pop culture still instantly recognizes why the date remains taboo, she explains. That shared understanding has gradually made it permissible to explore through humour.
To meet the 25th-anniversary milestone, Mroczek organized the chapbook around 25 topics, each a little exploration of 9/11. To bring the project to life, she cold-emailed Jason Sheridan, co-host of the popular podcast The Ride, after hearing him discuss 9/11 in pop culture on an episode. Sheridan ended up signing on as co-author on the project. “He is American, so it was nice that he brought that perspective,” Mroczek says. “He knew about things that I didn’t and I knew about things that he didn’t.”
One of Mroczek’s favourite essays in the book traces the origins of the phrase “too soon.” Just days after the attacks, comedian Gilbert Gottfried delivered a 9/11 joke. An audience member shouted out the phrase in response — inadvertently coining a pop-culture staple that defined comedy standards.
“The timing of 9/11 aligns with the pre-social media era,” Mroczek says. “It’s the start of the internet. So much in our lives was changing. It’s just a really interesting time historically, and in pop culture.”
The chapbook focuses on how 9/11 news filtered through early internet spaces, journalism and celebrity commentary. Despite the delicate topic, Mroczek has received no negative pushback for taking a light-hearted, analytical approach. The primary target audience remains millennials — a generation old enough to remember the event as children or teens, coming of age alongside in the early online era.
The chapbook uncovers several remarkable anecdotes, ranging from tragic coincidences to internet myth-busting.
In one, the chapbook details how the co-creator of Frasier and his spouse died aboard one of the hijacked flights. They had delayed their return flight after declining an invitation from star Kelsey Grammer to return early. Eerily, his spouse had previously voiced a caller on an episode of Frasier centred around a plane crash.
For another, Mroczek debunked an error in a Rolling Stone article, which claimed 9/11 helped launch Smash Mouth’s hit song “All Star.” After reaching out directly to the band’s manager, Mroczek confirmed the band had simply postponed the release of a different single out of respect following the attacks. “All Star” had already achieved massive success months prior, driven by the June 2001 release of Shrek.
Readers can find the chapbook at Audreys Books, Porch Light Books, Paper Birch Books and online.
The Agatha Press Fall Launch is Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 3:30 p.m. in the Muttart Theatre at the Edmonton Public Library, Stanley A. Milner Library.
LitFest runs from October 14-18, 2026 | litfestalberta.org
