Leah Hager Cohen, a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, established herself as a serious writer in 1994 with her nonfiction book, Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World. Chosen by the American Library Association as one of the best books of 1994, Inside a Deaf World details what it was like growing up as a hearing child around deaf children. Cohen's first fiction novel, Heat Lightning, is a coming-of-age story told from the point of view of two sisters, ages eleven and twelve, who have to deal with the death of their parents.