Is this you? Or do you exclusively represent this speaker?

Hollie McKay

Author •
Journalist

Geopolitical Analyst and Journalist, War Reporter, Author, International Humanitarian

Visit Hollie's website

About

Gender: Female

Nationality:

Languages: English

Travels from: United States

Engagement Types

Topics

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biography Highlights

Hollie McKay is a writer, war crimes investigator, and the author of “Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield.”

Biography

Meet Hollie McKay

Hollie S. McKay is a foreign policy expert, war crimes investigator, and keynote speaker. She was an investigative and international affairs/war journalist for Fox News Digital for over fourteen years where she focused on warfare, terrorism, and crimes against humanity.

Hollie has worked on the frontlines of several major war zones and covered humanitarian and diplomatic crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other areas including Ukraine.

Her globally-spanned coverage, in the form of thousands of print articles and essays, has included exclusive and detailed interviews with numerous captured terrorists, as well as high-ranking government, military, and intelligence officials and leaders from all sides.

She has spent considerable time embedded with US and foreign troops, conducted extensive interviews with survivors of torture, sex slavery and forced child jihadist training, refugees, and internally-displaced people to communicate the complexities of such catastrophes and war crimes on local populations.

Hollie’s columns have additionally been featured in the Wall Street Journal and her writings referenced in innumerable mainstream publications and academic journals. Additionally, she has won numerous foreign press and humanitarian awards. She is acclaimed by her peers as one of the most diligent reports in her field.

Videos

Popular Talks

Importance of Human Connection - What War Teaches Us

While conflict brings out the worst of humanity, it also brings out the very best. Survivors of such manmade atrocities teach us what it is to be brave, when there is little choice for the ordinary to become extraordinary. I have often been struck by how ordinary people are forced to become extraordinary at the drop of a hat – or a bomb. I am both perplexed and inspired by the resilience of these people to withstand pain (physical and psychological), to find hope in the bundling of misery, and to push through the darkness. The key? Faith, hope, and the power of love and holding each other up.

Available: Virtually

The Art of Storytelling in Hostile Environments

Getting to the truth, and shining a light in some of the darkest corners of the globe, is far from a straight-forward task, especially when faced with hostile governments, insurgents and powerful players who will stop at nothing from squashing the truth. But it can and must be done, both now and in the future.

Available: Virtually

On Investigating War Crimes and Accountability

Over and over again, we hear and often even see unfathomable crimes being committed by governments, gangsters, warlords and terrorists against those simply caught in the crossfire of conflict. Who is holding the perpetrators accountable? Why are so many mass murderers and rapists getting away with their crimes in the context of wartime? More must be done.

Available: Virtually

How Terrorists Think and Operate: Interviewing ISIS

Having spent years interviewing terrorists from various factions, all over the world and with different ranks and responsibilities, Hollie can offer an unprecedented insight into what makes them tick, what they really want, and why they do what they do.

Available: Virtually

Woman in War: Vignettes from All Sides

Women are playing an increasingly prominent role in today’s wars, and on all sides of the spectrum. We are seeing more female jihadists, more female fighters, more foreign terrorist wives and more females fighting for what’s right and playing visible roles in conflict resolution. Women, like never before, are crucial to preventing future conflict.

Available: Virtually

Resolution and the Future of Conflict

With more than sixty million people displaced from their homes and a world in disarray akin to that of World War II times, it is hard not to fling our arms in the air and back away from the world. But isolation is not the only answer, there are solutions and we need to work together with a greater focus on prevention rather than containment, to bring the world’s many wars back to balance.

Available: Virtually

Books

Only Cry for the Living: Memos from the ISIS Battlefield

Only once in a lifetime does a war so brutal erupt. A war that becomes an official genocide, causes millions to run from their homes, compels the slaughtering of thousands in the most horrific of ways, and inspires terrorist attacks to transpire across the world. That is the chilling legacy of the ISIS onslaught, and Only Cry for the Living takes a profoundly personal, unprecedented dive into one of the most brutal terrorist organizations in the world. Journalist Hollie S. McKay offers a raw, on-the-ground journey chronicling the rise of ISIS in Iraq-exposing the group’s vast impact and how and why it sought to wage terror on civilians in a desperate attempt to create an antiquated “caliphate.”

WORDS THAT NEVER LEAVE YOU: Fifty Pearls of Wisdom and Reflection from Survivors Across the World

Notebooks, however flimsy or fancy, are a writer’s indispensable tool. Mine are often (almost) eligible encapsulations of a moment that won’t come again, of humans who pass through your life for one and only one powerful encounter. Thus, in this process of collating the anecdotes that have spoken to me most I wrenched open the dozens and dozens of notebooks I have kept – strewn inside apartments and storage units across the country – to find the fifty most powerful phrases and ruminations uttered to me from people across the world. But the truth is, I didn’t need written chronicles of these moments. Instead, the most influential words remain etched in my brain. I remember everything about who said them, how they said them, the smell of the air, and the noises in the distance. Words of poignance and power tattoo themselves into the crevices of your brain, forcing you to face and probe their deeper meaning and make you view and ponder situations in a new light.

Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule

Veteran war reporters – writer Hollie McKay and photographer Jake Simkin – walk you through the fall of the U.S. and the rise of the Taliban, drawing you into the minds of the new regime and into the hearts of the Afghanistan people.