Snapshots Sent Home: In the News

See also Reviews for Snapshots Sent Home.

Publishers Weekly, “J.T. Blatty on Writing in a War Zone” August 16, 2024
JT Blatty, author of Snapshots Sent Home, reflects on her experience writing in a war zone.
“… When you’re a writer, you write, regardless of where you are. And if that place happens to be within the boundaries of a war zone, a writer will still find a time to write in between the moments of adrenaline and fear. But the character of the writing—the voice—changes depending on how close or distant in time the writer is from those moments they are writing about.
“In the immediate aftermath, when the brain and body are still coming down from the fight-or-flight instinct, the voice is of the present, like a documentary photograph—an accounting of the events as we witness them. But the more time that separates us from these moments, the more space we have for reflection and introspection over what we have already written …
[Following Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022] “There was no time to reflect anymore, only to react. When I did find the spare time to write, the writing was immediate and raw, without closure. I was no longer a spectator of Ukraine’s war, traveling to and from the front line from my peaceful life as a photojournalist staying in Kyiv—Ukraine was now my home, the soldiers my community. I was in the center of it all, driving supplies from Poland to the soldiers in Ukraine whose lives I spent years documenting as the air sirens blared. I watched the people who filled the pages I had written before the invasion, many of whom had become my friends, fall in real time. When I tried to envision an ending to my book, I found that I couldn’t anymore. …”

 

Art Conscious Gallery Exhibit June 8, 2024
As part of the Butterflies on Fire and Freedom or Death dual exhibits, Art Conscious Gallery, New Orleans, hosted a special conversation with author JT Blatty and Ukrainian war veteran Yuliia Tolopa. Tolopa, whose story is in Snapshots Sent Home, spoke about her decision to fight for Ukraine in 2014 as a then-Russian citizen, insights into the work of soldiers, and the fight for freedom. JT signed copies of her memoir at The Garden District Book Shop.

Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine May 30, 2024
JT discussed her book as part of the international conference “Culture and Art in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian War: Artistic Strategies, Discursive Practices, Vectors of Comprehension.”

The Reading Life with Susan Larson (WWNO) May 11, 2024
Susan Larson talks with JT about her experiences interviewing Ukraine’s volunteer soldiers, being drawn to the veteran community, searching for a sense of purpose, finding a sense of peace in a war zone, and bringing photos to life through her writing.

Discussion and Book Signing at West Point April 23-24, 2024

 

America House Kyiv, March 26, 2024

 

Fulbright Ukraine & Українське Фулбрайтівське коло, March 25, 2024
Jessica Zychowicz, director of Fulbright Ukraine, talks with Jenn (JT) Blatty about her memoir Snapshots Sent Home. Tetiana Savchynska translates.

Veterans Radio, March 3, 2024

JT Blatty talks with Veterans Radio host Dale Throneberry about her combat experiences and journey as a documentary photographer in Ukraine.

 

WWL-TV Lousianna, February 24, 2024
Two years after Russian invasion, local [New Orleans] Ukrainians fight not to be forgotten. Saturday marked two years since Russia launched what would become Europe’s most violent conflict since World War II. Includes interview with JT Blatty at Octavia Books event.

WBUR/NPR Here & Now, February 21, 2024
Host Peter O’Dowd talks with US combat veteran JT Blatty about her experience as photojournalist in Ukraine, and her book Snapshots Sent Home: From Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine—A Memoir.

~

Before the release of her memoir Snapshots Sent Home, JT Blatty exhibited photos and audio recordings in her Frontline / Peace Life collection, and shared her own war experiences as a combat veteran. Explore the links below to get to know Ukraine’s soldiers and JT’s meaningful experience as a documentary photojournalist in Ukraine.

Frontline / Peace Life

This collection of photographic portraits and recorded stories of Ukraine’s 2014 revolutionaries honors the ordinary men and women, most without military training, who self-deployed to the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and stopped the Russian insurgency in the Donbas. Unlike JT’s wartime experience as a US Army officer serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Ukrainian soldiers weren’t under a contract or an obligation to serve a government. They weren’t motivated by money or benefits or job security. This tribe was driven by something far more powerful––what they truly believed in and a vision for change. In 2018, JT began documenting their stories, walking alongside them on the front line and in the peace life. She says, “I’ve laughed with them, cried with them, drank far too much alcohol with them, raised glasses in memory with them, and after February 24th, when they again rose to fight and inspired the world, I suddenly realized that I had become one of them. There was once an undeniable thread woven between myself and the 2014 revolutionaries, the experience of war and the experience of a collision; when the impossible becomes possible, when everyone turns in towards each other instead of against each other, when a land we call home is invaded; my September 11th, 2001, and their Maidan, illegal annexation of Crimea and the insurgency into the Donbas in 2014. But February 24, 2022, bound us in a new way, because it became one that we shared together.”

View portraits of Ukraine’s 2014 revolutionaries taken by JT Blatty beginning in 2018.

Listen to the audio recordings.

 

The Ukrainian Institute of America (UIA), NYC
Art at the Institute, 2020–Present
Frontline / Peace Life: Ukraine’s Revolutionaries of the Forgotten War

 

 

‘Ukraine: War and Resistance’ Minneapolis photo exhibit captures personal side of war, March 30, 2023
Coverage by Jared Goyette, KSMP Fox 9 Minneapolis

 

 

Ukraine From Revolution to War—In Photos, June 16, 2023
A new exhibit on display at the Annenberg School shows conflict and resilience in Ukraine, as documented by Ukrainian and American photojournalists.
Coverage by Hailey Reissman
(“Bearing Witness: Photographs from Ukraine,” an exhibition organized by the Center for Media at Risk at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, the Fulbright Program in Ukraine, and the Institute for International Education)