• 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

Lone Wolf

A Forsaken Predator Reappears… From September/October 2013 issue of Orion magazine

The Greatest Team… Ever?

USA Women’s Soccer Is the Greatest Sports Team Ever Fielded The gold medal winners may yet turn out to be America’s best export. USA’s Abby Wambach (2nd L) celebrates scoring on a penalty kick against Canada in the women’s semifinal soccer match against Canada at the London 2012 Olympics at Old Trafford in Manchester, August […]

Future Man

Originally printed in Surfer’s Journal TAKE LAS VIRGENES ROAD FROM THE 101 FREEWAY and drive into the heart of Malibu Canyon past hoary Mulholland and keep going to Piuma Road. Then, take a left and climb through the rolling hills up toward the mountain peaks and find Las Flores Canyon Road, the downward glide of […]

Fifty Minutes

Originally published in Slake: Los Angeles, #2 Crossing Over, 2011. Selected for Best American Mystery Stories, 2012, Robert Crais, Editor. By Joe Donnelly and Harry Shannon The client is a balding, sunburned man with soft, forgettable features. Running late, he enters the office at 7:02 p.m. and nearly knocks a small Buddha statue from its […]

The Pirate of Penance

Originally published in Slake: Los Angeles, issue #1 “Still Life”, summer 2010. Featured in We Dropped A Bomb on You: The Best of Slake I-IV, spring 2014 Mystic Beginnings When Lorey Smith was 12 years old, her father loaded her and her brother into his black 1965 Mustang and drove them down the Pacific Coast […]

The Tortoise and the Tank Face Off at Fort Irwin

Originally published in the LA Weekly SAND IN THE BOX The worst sandstorm in John Wagstaffe’s memory is at full howl. We’re deep inside Iraq, somewhere between the towns of Medina Jabal and Medina Wasl, on a day when the threat of violence is as thick as the squalls of sand. But there’s something about […]