Gearing up for my book launch! Here's a sneak peak.

Published: Fri, 08/12/16


Author Mary Cronk Farrell 
August  12, 2016
Hello ,

This week kicks off the promotional campaign for Fannie Never Flinched, pub date November 1.

I'm thrilled to announce the Western Pennsylvania launch will be hosted by the Allegheny-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum. More info to come!

Launch date in Spokane will be Thursday, November 17th. Hope to give you full details soon. Here's your sneak preview of the first promotional blog post! 
Sneak Preview
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This book was first rejected for publication more than ten years ago. Through those years I never lost my passion for the story of this brave woman, Fannie Sellins.

And I never stopped believing that her story is relevant today.

Here's the anecdote that first stirred my admiration for Fannie’s courage. 

During a coal miners strike in Colliers, West Virginia, a federal judge issued an injunction barring union organizers from talking to workers union "in their homes or on the streets."
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 The strikers held a mass meeting at the town Opera House and due to threatened arrests chose a man to speak who was not a member of the mine workers union.

Fannie had already defied the judge once, and been cited with contempt of court. She knew if she spoke, she would likely be arrested. But after the main speaker, she took the stage insisting on her right to free speech. 
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 Fannie told the crowd she had spoken from platforms all across the country in support of striking workers and their families.

She wouldn't let a judge in West Virginia could not deny her that right. “The only wrong that I have done is to take shoes to the little children in colliers who needed shoes. And when I think of their little bare feet, blue with the cruel blasts of winter, it makes me determined that if it be wrong to put shoes upon those little feet, then I will continue to do wrong as long as I have hands and feet to crawl to Colliers.”
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Young readers of FANNIE NEVER FLINCED will see that she was an ordinary American girl, who grew up in a time with challenges similar to ours today. 

The early 1900's have been called the Gilded Age of American Industrialization. Owners of industrial corporations were the “gilded” while hundreds of thousands of workers subsisted on poverty wages.

Twenty-two percent of American children lived in poverty in 2013 compared with 18 percent in 2008, according to the Kids Count Data Book,* an annual report that ranks states by the well-being of their children. 

With the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percentage of kids in poverty than the United States, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.**
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Photo courtesy of AmericanPoverty.org. Hispanic children are twice as likely to live in poverty as white children in the United States.

Forbes Magazine disputes these stats on child poverty. Forbes, a leading source of news for American business and financial people in this country, published the assertion that the statistics were unfairly twisted to suggest the level of poverty in the U.S. is higher than is true.***

There will always be disagreement and debate about how to handle the issue of poverty. But while the posturing continues and the arguments fly, it is the innocent and helpless who suffer. The largest group of impoverished children are age 0-3.​​​​​​​****
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Fannie Sellins put her hopes in the union labor movement. She believed America could rise to its ideals of equality and justice for all and she spent her life working to make change happen, even when she ended up in jail and in danger for her life.

In fact, Fannie was eventually shot by company gunmen during a strike in Western Pennsylvania.

My hope in publishing Fannie Never Flinched is that her courage will inspire us to continue the work of providing justice for those in poverty through no fault of their own. Fannie is a model for courage in our time.

Sources: 
* http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-the2016kidscountdatabook-2016.pdf (page 14)
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/
*** http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/10/dont-believe-the-epi-about-child-poverty-in-america-its-not-23-1/#2ed55ebc44cf
**** http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/by-the-numbers-childhood-poverty-in-the-u-s/
News and Links 
I'd love to hear your ideas about how to promote this book. Send me your thoughts!

If you feel inclined to help spread the word about FANNIE NEVER FLINCHED, please do! It would mean a lot to me. A lot of my heart went into this book.

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​​​​​​​Thank you!