MATERNAL DISPATCHES with Hollie McKay
Maternal Dispatches with Hollie McKay is where frontline war reporting meets the stories that matter most: maternal health, human rights, and the human cost of conflict, told from the mother's lens.
Every week, I dive into the headlines that should be making news: the hidden humanitarian crises, the mothers and families too often forgotten, and the extraordinary resilience of people surviving on the margins of war and policy failure.
Welcome to Maternal Dispatches — where empathy leads the conversation.
Follow Hollie on Instagram and X @holliesmckay
Maternal Dispatches is proudly brought to you by holliesmckay.substack.com
MATERNAL DISPATCHES with Hollie McKay
Dispatches: How to Go From Ballet to Battlefields
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this deeply personal dispatch, Hollie reflects on the unlikely path from a ballet studio in rural Australia to frontlines across the globe. Drawing from her recent article, Hollie opens up about how the discipline, grace, and storytelling of dance shaped her into the journalist she is today. Through stories of her working-class upbringing, early exposure to global narratives through choreography, and a fateful ankle injury that redirected her future, she shares how ballet wasn’t just an artform—but a survival mechanism.
This episode explores how our formative passions can become our compass, guiding us to unexpected and purposeful lives.
Visit holliesmckay.substack.com