Bill Donahue is a writer for Outside, Harper’s, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, and more…
In 1987, when I was 22, I saw something dark and disturbing go down in a vacant lot in Portland, Oregon. For 36 years, I couldn’t steel myself to write about it. Then, finally, I found the words. First place essay, 2024 National City and Regional Magazine Awards.
Portland Monthly
Edited by Benjamin Cassidy
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When your roots in a place go back generations, change can be painful. Especially when you are the one pushing for change.
Yankee
Edited by Ian Aldrich
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Remembering my Uncle Bill, a Catholic monk and a scholar who left the church to spend his last 30 years in the French Pyrenees, tending his garden and translating Thucydides from Greek into Latin.
Outside
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower
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A Mother’s Day essay remembering my mom, Barbara Donahue (1929–2017), and my favorite punk band, The Plasmatics (1977–1983).
The Washington Post Magazine
Edited by David Rowell. Illustration by Maggie Chiang.
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The joys and agonies of maintaining the picket fence at my family’s ancient home in New Hampshire.
Yankee
Edited by Ian Aldrich. Illustration by Cindy Rizza.
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Until he died at age 71, while rowing on a lake in Maine, my college cross country and track coach, Jim Wescott was a mentor and sensei to hundreds of athletes. Here’s an account of what it was like to run for him.
Colby Magazine
Edited by Gerry Boyle.
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The author launches a career as a nordic ski racer.
The Washington Post Magazine
Edited by David Rowell. Photos by Layne Kennedy.
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The summer I turned 18, I lived with my grandmother in our family’s rambling summer home in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. It was an unusual housing scenario, but somehow the experience kind of launched my writing career.
The Smart Set
Edited by Jason Wilson.
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Facing down my demons on an excruciatingly tough bike ride through the green hills of Dominica, a tiny island nation in the Caribbean.
The Washington Post Magazine
Edited by David Rowell
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