• Propelled on a Zephyr of Compressed Wind

    CR Stecyk, the Smithsonian, and the first airbrushed surfboard. Originally published in the The Surfer’s Journal. By JOE DONNELLY Stored somewhere deep in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, along with other markers of pre-collapse American life gleaned from hundreds of years of material history, is a singular surfboard […]

  • Wrecking Crews: Remembering John Albert and his lost generation

    Originally published in the Los Angeles Review of Books. By JOE DONNELLY I REMEMBER WHEN my relationship dynamic with the late writer John Albert went from being friendly acquaintances to something like the hipster Honeymooners. It was when my then-wife and I moved into a house up the street from John and his then-wife. It […]

  • The Passionate Conversationalist: On Scott Timberg’s “Boom Times for the End of the World”

    Originally published in the Los Angeles Review of Books. By JOE DONNELLY ALTHOUGH IT RIGHTFULLY should be read as a celebration of his life and work, for those who knew and loved Scott Timberg, or just appreciated what he did and stood for, there is no separating Boom Times for the End of the World […]

  • God of Sperm: Cappy Rothman’s Life in Conception

    By JOE DONNELLY with CAPPY ROTHMAN God of Sperm: Cappy Rothman’s Life in Conception is available now. “Dr. Cappy Rothman’s career is without parallel in modern medicine. Do you know any physician who actually started a brand new medical specialty, has been responsible for bringing a quarter million babies into the world to parents who […]

  • It’s here! So Cal: Dispatches from the End of the World

    So Cal: Dispatches from the End of the World is available now. The new collection is a wide-ranging survey of Southern California-centric characters, capers and aesthetics. 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 […]

  • Writer Joe Donnelly works at his desk inside the backyard garage at his home in Orange on Thursday, January 6, 2022. Donnelly uses electric space heaters to help keep him warm during the cold months. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

    What’s it like to be a writer? No good writer loves writing.

    Forget the supposed ‘glamour,’ says this author.

  • Messiah Wolf

    When I was a boy, my imagination was ripe for wolves…

  • Red Canary Magazine

    Sponsored by Red Canary Collective™, Red Canary Magazine is an independently staffed and executed publication launched in collaboration with award-winning journalist and writer, Joe Donnelly. We provide space for difference-making work focusing on environmental, social justice and equity issues. While the need is urgent, we endeavor to approach our mission with humor, hope and humility. […]

  • The Confirmation of Danny Kwock

    By JOE DONNELLY This piece originally appeared in the The Surfer’s Journal.  PDF available here.   Danny Kwock’s hair is long. Like, hippie long. This might surprise those who’ve leafed through the tome The Eighties at Echo Beach, or are old enough to have been there and remember when Kwock, Preston Murray, Jeff Parker, Peter […]

  • Hymns of the Apocalypse

    By JOE DONNELLY APRIL 17, 2020 This piece originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It’s like they knew. Of course Pearl Jam didn’t intend for its new album, “Gigaton,” to be a coronavirus hymnal. After all, it has been gestating for seven years, taking shape via a sort of long-distance, idea-sharing dynamic necessitated by the band […]

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.

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Featured

O. Henry Prize Stories Collection Is Here!

Joe Donnelly’s “Bonus Baby” brings us to the ball game but from inside the very center, from the pitcher’s point of view. The story takes place during a game—not just any game but a possible perfect game. We see how the pitcher’s life has led him to this moment. The pitcher’s tics, familiar to any […]

Father Pop

How Mike Salisbury defeated communism with sex, drugs and rock and roll. 

“Bonus Baby” Selected for 2016 O. Henry Prize Collection

ANNOUNCING THE 2016 O. HENRY PRIZE STORIES THE BEST SHORT FICTION OF THE YEAR May 19, 2016 By Literary Hub We are very happy to announce the O. Henry Prize Stories for 2016, edited by Laura Furman, which will appear in an eponymous anthology this September, from Anchor. Read selected stories here:         […]

Is Trump manipulating fears to mobilise the masses?

May 2, 2016 / Huck 55 – The Freaked Out Issue Image: © Anthony Gerace Fear and loathing in the United States WATCHING THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL primaries play out is like walking down a long hallway lined wall-to-wall with fun-house mirrors. What we see is ugly, twisted and distorted – but in the case of our […]

Burdens and Privileges

March 9, 2016 / Los Angeles Review of Books Burdens by Water: An Unintended Memoir, by Alan Rifkin, Published 2016-02-23, Brown Paper Press, 214 Pages ALAN RIFKIN has been something of a talismanic figure in my life. I’m sure this is news to him because despite his generous thanks to me in the back of Burdens by Water: An Unintended […]

Welcome to Wolf Country

Published by Orion Last year, OR7, the first wild wolf to roam California in nearly a century, met his mate and started a pack in southern Oregon. Sightings of another wolf in the area were reported earlier this week. Author Joe Donnelly took a recent trip to Oregon, retracing his travels described in “Lone Wolf,” […]