Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, a professor of creative writing at Northern Kentucky University, stands quietly behind the podium at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio. She’s there to read an excerpt from her new memoir, “Sounds Like Titanic,” but, for now, she’s enjoying the looks on the faces of those in attendance.

Minutes before Hindman stepped forward, Tamaiya Wilson, a professional violinist and NKU alumna, performed for the crowd—not playing the violin but, rather, miming on her instrument to a CD of music suspiciously similar to the score from 1997’s “Titanic.” It was a bizarre scene, but this was no avant-garde art-piece. Instead, it’s a ruse—one Hindman knows all too well.

At one point in her life, Hindman was a fake violinist, too. And she’s spent years trying to make sense of the experience.

WEST VIRGINIA, 1985

The daughter of a doctor and a social worker, Hindman grew up in two small, Appalachian towns in West Virginia (until she was 10 years old) and Virginia (through high school).

And though there’s plenty of fakery in her story, one thing is very true: She loves the violin and has since she was 4 years old,when she fell under the spell of Vivaldi’s “Winter” while watching “Sarah and the Squirrel,” a 1982 animated film about World War II that featured the composition. For four years, Hindman begged her parents for a violin. She dreamt of becoming a professional violinist and mentally played the few Vivaldi notes she could remember before falling asleep each night.

Then, shortly after her eighth birthday, Hindman’s parents caved. They bought her a violin and committed to driving several hours both ways through the mountains to Virginia for weekly lessons. Through high school, she dedicated herself to playing the violin, and locals in her hometown took notice. They told her she had a “reeyell” gift.

NEW YORK, 1999

Hindman’s gift earned her an acceptance letter from New York’s Columbia University. Her parents pleaded with her to turn it down, but she was eager to leave Appalachia for the Ivy League. She enrolled as a music major and packed her violin for the move to Manhattan. Growing up in a doctor’s household, Hindman was aware of class differences between her family and others in the community. But when she got the $30,000 price tag for her Columbia education—an amount her family could not afford—her elevated standing flipped upside-down.

“I found myself coming from a town in which I was a doctor’s daughter… to going to an Ivy League school where I was seen as poor,” Hindman says. “I was privileged in one world and not in another.”

Hindman had convinced her family she could get a job to make up the difference in tuition cost, but, determined to become a professional violinist, she didn’t have much time for work. So, to afford her first semester of college, she sold her eggs to  a fertility clinic.

But while years of dedication and private lessons can make you the best in your small town, they don’t automatically lead to professional musicianship. Surrounded by more talented violinists, Hindman barely made the cut for the college orchestra. After a few months, Hindman decided to face the music and changed her major to Middle Eastern Studies.

EGYPT, 2001

In the fall of 2001, Hindman joined a study abroad program in Cairo, Egypt. A few weeks after landing at the Cairo International Airport, Hindman witnessed footage from back home in New York City—two planes had hit the Twin Towers. Many of her fellow students fled to Europe, as the home of one of the hijackers was just blocks from where they stood in Cairo, but she chose to stay and document her experiences for her hometown newspaper.

So began a new dream: becoming a Middle East news correspondent. Hindman studied Arabic and learned everything she could about Islamic literature, art and religion with the intention of bridging understanding between the U.S. and the Middle East.

NEW YORK, 2002

Approaching her senior year at Columbia, Hindman was working two jobs and $8,000 behind on her tuition payment for the fall semester. She was starting to feel hopeless when she spotted a strange (but promising) advertisement on the student listserv that would allow her to play the violin with a professional, traveling orchestra:

“Seeking violinists and flute players to perform in award-winning ensemble that has performed on PBS and NPR and at Lincoln Center. Must be able to work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. $150/day with potential bonuses. Send résumé and demo tape to Becca Belge, Assistant Production Manager.”

Hindman’s dreams of becoming a professional violinist resurfaced immediately, and, just three days after submitting a demo tape, she was hired. Was it suspicious that she was given a W-4 form before she even finished what she thought was her audition? Sure, but this was her dream. She loved music and couldn’t give up a second chance to pursue it.

It all seemed too good to be true—largely because it was. On one of her first days on the job, she stood for hours in front of a microphone, holding her violin between her chest and neck. She did play, but the audience couldn’t hear her over the recording of a better violinist blasting over the loud speakers. She hit wrong notes; no one knew.

This was no fluke—it was the job. The group pretended to play at craft fairs, in shopping malls, on national television and at Carnegie Hall, and the performance was always the same: the microphones were never plugged in, the musicians pretended as music very similar to “Titanic” (tweaked just enough to not violate copyright law) played over the stereo.

The man behind the music—whom Hindman refers to as The Composer—isn’t necessarily a villain. He stayed behind after every concert to meet fans and chat with them. His “work” gave audiences comfort in the years following 9/11. He wasn’t a bad man—he was just a phony.

“There was this contrast between great praise and the reality of knowing it wasn’t real,” she says. “It wasn’t guilt but more worry about what I was doing with my life. I knew there was a more authentic way to make a living.”

NEW YORK, 2003

She completed her Ivy League degree and undertook a dogged job search, but Hindman could not find a newspaper that would hire a Middle Eastern war correspondent. She was rejected for a Fulbright scholarship in the final round just weeks before having to move out of university housing, so she continued to tour with the ensemble after graduation to pay down student loans and, hopefully, one day move abroad.

But things changed drastically for Hindman when, in the fall of 2004, she joined the ensemble on the 54-city PBS God Bless America Tour. The stress of pretending to perform atop an identity crisis manifested in debilitating panic attacks that invaded every part of her life—including performances. She recalls losing grip of reality in her personal life while a post-9/11 United States faced the beginning of the Iraq War. When the tour ended, Hindman quit the ensemble and moved back to her parent’s house in Appalachia for six months.

Playing in the ensemble had paid Hindman’s rent and tuition, but at a significant cost. When you ask her why she stayed on for four years, despite panic attacks and guilt and the grueling hours of pretend performances, she takes a deep breath.

“I was 21 years old and so grateful to have a job,” she says. “When we’re young, we’re even more susceptible to everyone else’s approval of us, and I think that was part of it. There’s also the lifelong continuation of that dream. Being able to say ‘I’m a professional violinist’ holds a certain cachet that ‘I’m a receptionist at an upscale spa’ does not.”