JOE DONNELLY is an award-winning journalist, writer and editor. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Journalism at Whittier College and the editor of Red Canary Magazine, a digital magazine focused on environmental and social issues. Red Canary has won numerous awards, including best online publication, since its winter, 2020 inception.

Donnelly has received numerous accolades for this writing. His short story “Bonus Baby”, published in the spring/summer 2015 issue of  Zyzzyva, is featured in the 2016 O. Henry Prize Stories Collection as one of the 20 best short stories of the year. “Messiah Wolf”, also published by Zyzzyva, was a 2021 Best American Essays Notable Essay. “Lone Wolf,” for Orion, earned a 2014 Pen Center USA Literary Awards Finalist for Journalism. “50 Minutes,” co-authored with Harry Shannon and published in Slake: Los Angeles, was selected for the Best American Mystery Stories 2012 collection. Director Paul Schneider made it into a short film starring DJ Squalls and Stephen Tobolowsky. Donnelly has earned numerous Los Angeles and Colorado press club awards as a writer and editor.

His books include God of Sperm, about Cappy Rothman, a towering figure in reproductive medicine who happened to be the son of a notorious gangster. It was published in 2022 by Rare Bird books and will soon be out in paperback. His newest nonfiction collection, So Cal: Dispatches from the End of the World, is out now on Punk Hostage Press.

Here’s what some folks are saying about So Cal:

“The thing about Joe is he’s so busy championing his friends, it’s easy to forget what a great writer he is. Reading through the pieces that follow, I was floored by his ability to breathe freshness into every scene and description.” —Jamie Brisick, from the Foreword

“Joe’s always-vivid approach to storytelling conveys unique insight and an intimacy that anyone can connect with, no matter the subject.” —Lina Lecaro, Los Angeles Magazine  editor

“In place, character, and experience, Donnelly’s latest collection is sharp in observation and dripping in bona fides.”—Whitman Bedwell, editor in chief, The Surfer’s Journal

 L.A. Man: Profiles From a Big City and a Small World, which collects some of Donnelly’s boldest and best profile writing, is available from Rarebird Books. Here’s what some fancy writers say about L.A Man:

“Donnelly writes with big-hearted, languid elegance about migrating wolves, mad criminals, surf and skate pioneers, musicians, movie stars, and mortality. Each piece charts its own course, but the overall effect is that of a freewheeling ride through a gritty Southern Californian zeitgeist.” —Luke Davies, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Lion; author of Candy, Interferon Psalms, God of Speed.

“Joe Donnelly gravitates toward characters who have heart and portrays them with insight and humanity. I’ve yet to read one of his profiles without feeling that I got to know the subject and benefited from the encounter.” —Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic

“What a pleasure to ride shotgun with Joe Donnelly, a Los Angeles journalist who tells the story of a city through its artists, outlaws and other raconteurs.” —Manohla Dargis, co-chief film critic, New York Times

“Man can Donnelly write. About a West Coast culture he helped shape; about the mad dream of Los Angeles, about what it means to be human—a very cool collection!” —Steven Kotler, New York Times-bestselling author of The Rise of Superman, Stealing Fire, Bold and Abundance

Donnelly’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Weekly, Mother Jones, Huck, takepart.com, Orion, The Surfer’s Journal, Washington Post, Detour, Treats, The Times of London and many more national and international publications.

Before his Whittier engagement, Donnelly was the executive editor of Mission and State an exercise in dynamic, in-depth digital journalism. Donnelly was hired in January 2013 to start up this nonprofit, Santa Barbara-based project, funded through national grants and local matching funds. When he left in March of 2014, Mission and State had earned a national reputation and had attracted a deeply engaged and dedicated readership while changing the narrative on important and complex stories involving the environment, policing, politics, a gang-injunction proposal and more.

Prior to that, Donnelly founded and co-edited Slake: Los Angeles, the best-selling, award-winning quarterly of long-form journalism, fiction, essay, poetry, photography and art. In just four issues, Slake made a dozen appearances on the Los Angeles Times‘ bestsellers list. Work appearing in Slake has earned numerous awards and recognitions, among them: multiple Best American series selections, Livingston Award finalists, Pen USA finalists, LA Press Club awards, Franco-American Foundation’s Excellence in Immigration Reporting First Prize, and more. In 2014, Rarebird Lit published We Dropped A Bomb On You: The Best of Slake, I-IV. 

From 2002 through 2008, Donnelly was the deputy editor of the Los Angeles Weekly. Soon after his arrival at the Weekly, the paper embarked on an unprecedented winning streak, earning more journalism awards than any other alternative newspaper in history, including a Pulitzer Prize, while also making record profits. Donnelly trained and developed award-winning investigative journalists, edited or top-edited a lion’s share of the cover stories and features and was integral to a redesigning and modernizing of the paper.

Before joining the Weekly, Donnelly was the arts editor of New Times Los Angeles. Presiding that, he was the editor of the seminal pop-culture magazine Bikini and an editor at Ray Gun, the revolutionary David Carson-designed music and culture magazine. He was also the founding editor of the groundbreaking snowboarding magazine, Stick.

For a brief time, Donnelly ran his own multimedia and design firm, Buckboard 11, which, among other things, did pro model graphics for the likes of snowboarder Tara Dakides, published a graphic novel called Coolhunted and helped design and brand a high-end denim line. Somewhere along the way, Donnelly helped launch EXPN, ESPN’s extreme-sports website, now fully integrated into ESPN.

In his multidimensional career, Donnelly has interviewed, among others, Colin Powell, Jack Kemp, Desmond Tutu, Ray Charles, Lou Reed, Werner Herzog, Wes Anderson, Sean Penn, Christian Bale, Drew Barrymore, Beck and too many others to remember. He has written long-form piece about pirates, wolves and endangered tortoises.

Donnelly’s work has appeared in a several other anthologies and collections. He contributed an essay about The Beatles influence on Joan Didion to Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing By Joan Didion’s Light and an essay looking at the intersection of Beat poets and the iconic Z-Boys in Venice to Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine. “Wet” was featured in the environmental-journalism collection Naked: Writers Uncover The Way We Live On Earth. “John Vs. Paul” appeared in Rock and Roll Cage Match: Music’s Greatest Rivalries Decided.