Out There in the Out There: Tales from the midst of very big somewheres by Jerry Dale McDonnell
Out There in the Out There takes us deep into the wilderness of the “real” American west at the end of the last century, and it’s one helluva rollicking ride! Jerry McDonnell knows this time, this country, these characters. You can smell the wood smoke, the horseshit, and the bears. His yarns and fish stories are infectious, but it’s his navigation of the human heart that will haunt you sweetly down the trail. This is a no-bullshit collection from an old bullshitter of the first order. Take a joy-ride into the out-there—let the tail go with the hide!
—Mark Gibbons, Montana Poet Laureate, 2021-2023, author of In The Weeds, Connemara Moonshine, blue horizon, Forgotten Dreams and other collections
McDonnell’s stories are forceful, tender, violent, funny, and thought-provoking. You wouldn’t want to be “out there” with anyone else for this author is a man who sees, smells, and feels the rhythm of the earth and just plain knows how to live and thrive in the wildest of places.
—Monica Devine, author of Water Mask and five children’s books including Iditarod: The Greatest Win Ever and Kayak Girl
Cirque Author — Jerry Dale McDonnell
A writer and actor, Jerry Dale McDonnell’s, prose spans from fiction and nonfiction to plays to journalism. His experiences as a retired Alaskan bush teacher in Native villages and hunting guide in Montana and Idaho and bear-viewing guide in Alaska were a source for the writings in this collection. His play, Engines of Time, was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams Literary Conference. His other plays have had readings at the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska and other theater companies nationally. His play, The Lone Ranger Rides, was performed in Homer, Alaska at the Pier One Theater. In his fifty plus years as an actor, he has played roles in stage productions from California to Montana to Alaska and has had bit parts in several films. His prose and poetry have appeared in Catamaran, South Dakota Review, Over the Transom, MungBeing, Alaska Sampler 2015, Cirque, Dead Snakes, Explorations, Dan River Anthology, Northwood’s Journal, and Driftwood. As a freelance photo-journalist, he has appeared in Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Journal of Commerce, Peninsula Clarion, Calaveras Enterprise, and The Dispatch.