Terry McDonell

A son's lessons from his single mother--a twenty five year old widow who took control of her life, defied expectations and raised him into a manhood of his own--from the author of the acclaimed The Accidental Life. As a child, Terry McDonell imagined epic stories about his father, a fighter pilot who died in World War II. But, as he discovers in this dazzling memoir, the real hero in his life was his mother, Irma, who moved with him to California hoping for a new life and raised him through difficult times. Like most headstrong boys growing up in mid-century America, McDonell took his mother for granted, never giving her life much thought. He was bright, cocky, and determined to make his own way, separate from her and from his complicated roots. But as he matured, built a career, married, divorced, remarried, and raised his own sons, McDonell came to see that Irma had lived her life in a way that allowed him to discover what he wanted his own life to be. The person he was would be forever tied to Irma's courage and wisdom and love. From his recollections--a series of colorful, deeply personal, sometimes funny, stunningly composed vignettes--an intriguing and poignant portrait emerges. Irma is the story of a formidable woman who built the life she wanted as she raised her son to be the kind of man and father he had longed for but never knew.

Acclaimed sporting and adventure writer Charles Gaines has spent much of his life on the water, around the world, fishing rod in hand, angling for trout, redfish, salmon, bonefish, bass, marlin, tuna, and practically everything else that swims. Just about any place where there's water to fish and eccentrics to keep him company, Gaines has been. The Next Valley Over, a collection of his best writing on fishing from his long and storied career, is culled from the pages of Men's Journal, Forbes, and Sports Afield, among other publications, and ultimately is about the heart of the sport. While his stories are lined with the accoutrement of angling--the art of technique, the equipment, the lodges, the fish themselves--they're really about why we love to fish and what it means to our culture. As Thoreau once said: ? Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” What ?they are after” is what Charles is curious about, and he has devoted the better part of his life and sanity to coming up with answers. Starting and ending at the majestic Lake Tadpole in St. Clair County, Alabama, where Gaines’s love of fishing was initially sparked, the Next Valley Over chronicles exploits in exotic locations with eccentric characters. In the process of his quest of nearly every species known to man, Gaines explores what we are really searching for when we fish.

An Amazon Best Book of 2016 A celebration of the writing and editing life, as well as a look behind the scenes at some of the most influential magazines in America (and the writers who made them what they are). You might not know Terry McDonell, but you certainly know his work. Among the magazines he has top-edited: Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. In this revealing memoir, McDonell talks about what really happens when editors and writers work with deadlines ticking (or drinks on the bar). His stories about the people and personalities he's known are both heartbreaking and bitingly funny--playing "acid golf" with Hunter S. Thompson, practicing brinksmanship with David Carr and Steve Jobs, working the European fashion scene with Liz Tilberis, pitching TV pilots with Richard Price. Here, too, is an expert's practical advice on how to recruit--and keep--high-profile talent; what makes a compelling lede; how to grow online traffic that translates into dollars; and how, in whatever format, on whatever platform, a good editor really works, and what it takes to write well. Taking us from the raucous days of New Journalism to today's digital landscape, McDonell argues that the need for clear storytelling from trustworthy news sources has never been stronger. Says Jeffrey Eugenides: "Every time I run into Terry, I think how great it would be to have dinner with him. Hear about the writers he's known and edited over the years, what the magazine business was like back then, how it's changed and where it's going, inside info about Edward Abbey, Jim Harrison, Annie Proulx, old New York, and the Swimsuit issue. That dinner is this book."

Wyoming (The Lost Poems) is a run of poems written and put away in the 1970s. It is the work of a writer who began as a student of poetry but who became a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. None of the poems have been published previously or submitted anywhere for publication. It is a collection of exploding imagination and acute observation. Love, sex, betrayal, redemption . . . tossed like dice on uniquely American landscapes. With the first poem you wonder where Terry McDonell has been; by the last you are shocked by his answers.