2022 Hello , This
week I received news no author wants to hear. Two of my books are available in only limited quantities for holiday shoppers. Pure Grit and Fannie Never Flinched are on backorder at most bookstores and websites. No word on when there might be more copies. Please get in touch with me personally if you'd like to purchase a copy. I can get ahold of a few books and will personally autograph them for
you. Unfortunately, the movie will not be based on my book. My film agent had been working on a deal for me, but someone else got there first. Ever since Close Up On War came out earlier this year, people have been telling me about another woman journalist that I should write about. Her name is Marie Colvin. Though not a
photographer like Catherine Leroy, she was an incredible war correspondent and a woman of great integrity.
Marie Colvin: A Book and Two Movies
Marie Colvin
started work as a foreign correspondent in 1985, roughly the time that Catherine Leroy quit working as a war photographer. Though American, Marie worked for a British newspaper The Sunday Times reporting from the scene of the bloodiest conflicts around the world. Amidst East Timor's upraising to gain independence from Indonesia in 1999, Marie showed her metal, refusing to leave a refugee compound under siege from Indonesian militia troops. She and two other women reporters stayed, while all others left. Marie stayed, not only to report the story, but to secure the evacuation of women and children, saving the lives of 1,500 refugees. When asked about the men, diplomats and correspondents who'd left, she told her editor, “They just don’t make men like they used to.”
Two years later, Marie was hit by flying shrapnel from a grenade explosion covering civil war in Sri Lanka in 2001. She lost an eye, continuing
her work for another ten years years wearing a black eye-patch.
Photo courtesy Marie Colvin Memorial Foundation People have asked me, "Why don't
you write a book about Marie Colvin?" Someone else has already done that, as well as make a documentary and feature film about Marie's incredible courage and dedication to her work. But the major reason, is that Marie's story came to a tragic and deadly ending, as the target of a wartime atrocity. During the Arab Spring in Syria, Marie was hit by a rocket, a deliberate attack on the Media Center in Homs by the
Bashar al-Assad regime. Marie died, February 22, 2012. She'd criticized the Syrian government in her final broadcast for CNN, disputing Assad's assurance the army was only shelling insurgents. "It's a complete and utter lie they're only going after terrorists," Colvin told Anderson Cooper. "The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving
civilians."
Photo courtesy Marie Colvin Memorial Foundation Marie Colvin's family filed a lawsuit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a federal law that allows victims to sue designated state-sponsors of terrorism. The evidence
included testimony from a Syrian defector who'd been a high-ranking intelligence officer, as well as confidential government documents smuggled out of Syria. The judge ruled the Syrian regime methodically planned and perpetrated Marie’s assassination, but Assad refused to reply to the lawsuit and didn't acknowledge the verdict. I don't have the heart to write a book about Marie Colvin, but thankfully, someone else did. There's a book by Lindsey Hilsum, In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin.
And a
movie. Promotional copy: Driven by an enduring desire to bear witness and give voice to the voiceless, Marie Colvin charges into danger, constantly testing the limits
between bravery and bravado. A pulse-pounding story told from the frontlines of the most dangerous battlefields in the world, A
Private War chronicles Colvin's extraordinary life, as brought to the screen by Academy Award nominee and critically acclaimed documentarian Matthew Heineman in his first narrative feature.
Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike plays Marie plays Marie Colvin in A Private War. Following the film's release
in the US, Colvin's close friend and fellow female war correspondent, Janine di Giovanni, has slammed the film for using artistic licence in the way key
figures in Colvin's life are portrayed. A feature drama-documentary Under The Wire chronicles Marie Colvin and photographer Conroy’s journey from inside Syria in 2012. Conroy survived the attack that killed Marie and the film is based on his book of the same name.
Like my article today? Please share:
I did get some good news this week! The best kind! A note from a reader of Close Up on War who had asked me to mail him an autographed bookplate. Dear Mary, Thank you for telling the courageous story of Catherine Leroy. She is now getting the recognition she so richly
deserves. I arrived home from Italy on Wed and your book was waiting. Your letter with the bookplate arrived the next day so perfect timing.
Tomorrow, I leave for Vietnam!
I look forward to reading on the plane.
Thanks again! Vincent He even sent me a photo!
And I can get a few copies of Pure Grit and Fannie Never Flinched. If you'd like them, just reply to this email
and let me know. I can give you a 15% discount and I accept credit cards through PayPal, as well as payments through Venmo and Zelle.
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To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com.
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