Evelyn McDonnell | |
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| Born | Glendale, California |
| Occupation | Writer, academic |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Period | 1989–present |
| Genre | Memoir,non-fiction |
| Notable awards |
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| Website | |
| populismblog | |
Evelyn McDonnell is an American writer and academic. Writing primarily about popular culture, music, and society, she "helped to forge a new kind of feminism for her generation."[1][2] She is associate professor of journalism and new media atLoyola Marymount University.[3]
McDonnell was born in Glendale, California and grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin.[4] She was "weaned on the Jackson 5 and the women's movement."[5] Her first concert experiences were with her family at the Milwaukee Summerfest, where she sawDave Brubeck,Journey andSqueeze. As a teenager, she listened toIggy Pop andPatti Smith, and would drive to Chicago for shows by artists includingNew Order and theDead Kennedys.[6] She attended Brown University and graduated with a BA in American History. In 2010, she earned a master's degree in Specialized Journalism, the Arts, from the University of Southern California, Annenberg School.[7]
In college, McDonnell began writing professionally, first for the ProvidenceNewPaper and then for theProvidence Journal. She was a contributing editor for theNewPaper from 1985 through 1989, and then the associate editor of theSan Francisco Weekly. In 1996 she was named music editor for theVillage Voice.[6] That same year, she founded a fanzine,Resister, "a scholarly arts and literary journal for the masses, a fanzine for the mainstream, a magazine that's raw and sticky, not slick and glassy, a nuts and bolts guide to thought and expression."[8] She was a pop culture writer and music critic forThe Miami Herald from 2001 to 2007.
In the early 90s McDonnell freelanced for publications includingRolling Stone,Spin,Ms.,The New York Times, andBillboard.[6] She wrote frequently about bands and musicians associated with the underground feminist punk movement,Riot Grrrl,[9] and was a founding member of Strong Women in Music (SWIM), an activist group supporting women on all music-industry levels.[10] McDonnell wrote: "It was the early '90s, when direct activism, identity politics, hip-hop, and grunge were driving forces of the dawn of the Clinton era. We were a new breed of woman whom pundits, including some in our own ranks, struggled to name: postfeminists, womanists, Riot Grrrls, pro-sex feminists, do-me feminists (a name obviously thought up by a men's magazine), third-wave feminists, lipstick lesbians, bitches with attitudes."[1]
McDonnell andAnn Powers co-editedRock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap, published in 1995. An anthology of women's writing on music from the 1960s to the time of the book's publication, it compiled "exciting evidence of women writers' inroads made over the past three decades into the still male-dominated field of popular music criticism."[11]
McDonnell worked withJonathan Larson onRent by Jonathan Larsen, an account of the creation of the rock operaRent. She conducted interviews and wrote much of the text for the book, which was published in 1997. In a review,Entertainment Weekly wrote "It’s not at all surprising that a book on this show would be so sharp. What is surprising is that the book often seems more compelling and moving than the musical itself."[12]In 1998, she co-editedStars Don't Stand Still in the Sky : Music and Myth. Her book aboutBjork,Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork, was published in 2001.[13]
In 2009 McDonnell's "account of a life lived on the cultural and maternal cutting edge,"Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids, & Rock 'n' Roll was published. It was followed byQueens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways in 2013.[14]
McDonnell served as the editor ofWomen Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl, which profiles more than a hundred pioneering women musicians. Written by female writers, with illustrations by women, it was released in October 2018. In the introduction to the book McDonnell wrote: “All the people in this book are rhythm movers: the musicians, the writers, the illustrators. They have not merely tried to fit into the grooves of popular music … but have jumped the beat. They are musicians who inspire and compel us, the editors, writers, and illustrators of Women Who Rock."[15]
In 2009 McDonnell was awarded an Annenberg Fellowship to study Specialized Journalism, the Arts, at the University of Southern California. She received her master's in 2010. She is associate professor of journalism and new media at Loyola Marymount University.[4][3]
McDonnell is the stepmother of her husband's two adult daughters, Karlie and Kenda.[16] She and her husband, Bud, live with their son Cole in San Pedro, California.[4]
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