Children of the Catastrophe is a work of historical fiction that takes place in the first part of the 20th century. It is about family - about love and loss, crisis and survival. 

Shoemaker, a lifelong writer and former university librarian, has lived in Greece and also for two years in Izmir, Turkey, the present seaport city on the site of the former Smyrna. Thinking about the vast numbers of refugees in the world today, she says we too often see them as anonymous masses, and don't realize "This could be us, this could be someone I care about, sometime." She wanted to write a story that would show refugees as individuals and families, as people with lives rather than statistics.

September 2022 will make the 100th anniversary of the burning of the city of Smyrna. Almost the entire novel is set in the time before "the Catastrophe" and paints a lush and lovely picture of life in Smyrna's Greek community.