Shannon Kelly Donahue
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shannonkellydonahue.com
Shannon Kelly Donahue
@shannonkellydonahue.com
760 followers 850 following 930 posts
Writer ~ Editor ~ Advocate
Wildlife, Banshees, Climate, Language, Grief, Music, Gaeilge
Ciarraí Abú!

Words in Catamaran, Forum, Writers Rebel
2025 Evangeline Atwood Fellow at Storyknife

Honored to live in Alaska on Jilkáat Aani
shannonkellydonahue.com
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shannonkellydonahue.com
This quote from Dr. King is sadly still so relevant.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr beside his quote: "I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
November 9, 2025 at 10:33 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Aurora over Churchill, Manitoba, on Halloween night.
Crazy bright green Aurora swirls with reddish purple highlights Intense green aurora swirling across the sky Bright green Aurora looking like some kind of crazy nuclear explosion or something
November 1, 2025 at 4:29 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Spectacular aurora in Churchill, Manitoba, at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre on Halloween night.
Green Aurora over mixed taiga and tundra, with stars Green Aurora borealis with stars A spiral of green Aurora close to the horizon, with swirls spreading out across the sky Mostly green Aurora in spirals, swirls, and squiggles, with a touch of purple
November 1, 2025 at 4:25 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Digging into @rickirobin.bsky.social’s brand new essay collection, Ghosts of Distant Trees, on a train through the boreal forest to Hudson Bay. A gorgeous and thoughtful book. You should get it. #BookSky #AlaskaSky
The essay collection, Ghosts of Distant Trees, by Erica Watson, held up against the window of a train with black spruce forest in the background. The book cover features a beautiful image of a black spruce forest.
October 28, 2025 at 4:32 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Excited to spend some time with a different kind of tide book. @alaskapoet.bsky.social #BookSky
“The Tide Book”, a book of poems by Vivian Faith Prescott. The book cover festures absolutely delightful artwork by Joanna Carlson Perea, depicting a coastal scene with a harbor seal popping its head out of the water behind some bull kelp and four gulls in the water behind it. In the background, a glacier obscured by fog. The artwork has vibrant colors and looks like it could be made with pastels, but it’s actually fiber art.
October 18, 2025 at 8:40 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Chilkat Peninsula representing.
#AlaskaSky
Green northern lights and a few stars in the night sky, with silhouettes of spruce and hemlock trees.
September 30, 2025 at 5:59 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Tonight’s reading, with appropriate whale pillow backdrop. Excited to dig into this. @kennysbookshop.bsky.social
Hardcover (Kennys Bookshop limited edition) copy of the novel, Conversation with the Sea, by Hugo Hamilton, set against a pillow with a white pillowcase with various whales printed on it. The book cover is a beautiful moody seascape painting by Helen Glassford, I think in oil.
September 7, 2025 at 5:29 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Cormac Begley’s album B would look great there!
The jacket of Cormac Begley’s solo bass concertina album, B. The album cover is brown stock laser cut with the fretwork from Cormac’s Dipper bass concertina.
August 31, 2025 at 10:12 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Yes! This was discussed in a corner of #AlaskaSky last night. @pat.alaskarobotics.com posted a slew of these, including this one with the weird artificially intelligent Alaska flag-map.
An artificially intelligent slop-biography of Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy, with an inaccurate map of Alaska in Stars and Stripes that includes a few extra peninsulas and some islands that resemble part of Hawaii in the Bering strait. The title of the alleged book is Mike Dunleavy: The man behind Alaska’s conservative transformation. William D. mastin is credited as the author.
August 26, 2025 at 7:10 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
What a gift from the forest!
A cauliflower mushroom, estimated around five pounds, growing on the mossy forest floor at the base of a tree.
August 24, 2025 at 8:18 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Now is that really so difficult? Seen at the Village Bakery in Haines Junction, Yukon.
Bathroom sign with a silhouette that is half person in a dress, half person in pants. Text below the image reads “everyone”.
August 14, 2025 at 10:19 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
This female polar bear graced us with her lovely presence in our last hour in Churchill. Meanwhile, a large male was strolling the intertidal zone behind us.
August 11, 2025 at 1:32 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Seen in Winnipeg.
Mural covering the entire side of a six story building depicting people working a variety of jobs against an orange ombré background. Text reads “Unions make work better” and “United we stand”.
August 1, 2025 at 4:53 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
The Dorothy Macardle exhibit at Kilmainham Gaol is SO GOOD, and it's closing on the 6th of August! #spéirghorm
Screenshot of Kilmainham Gaol Museum's Facebook Post with image of Dorothy Macardle and a prison cell with her writing superimposed over it. Post text: Our current exhibition, 'Unsurrendered Spirits': The Prison Writings of Dorothy Macardle, will close on 6 August so if you want to see it before it closes you need to make your way to the Gaol soon. A reminder that admission to see our exhibitions is free and no booking is required.
July 26, 2025 at 1:44 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Very excited to dig into this!! And super impressed with how quickly @gutterbookshop.bsky.social got it to me in rural Alaska!
A book of essays titled Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O’Connor Means to Us, edited by Sonya Huber and Martha Baynes, with a foreword by Neko Case. Hard back book with black and white photo of Sinéad holding a microphone on a black background.
July 24, 2025 at 1:53 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Just finished Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. A beautiful, lyrically written, strange, queer story. Utterly bingeable.
Cover image of the audiobook Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield, narrated by Annabel Baldwin and Robin Holdaway. Cover art is a roiling sea under an eerie peachy orange sky.
July 10, 2025 at 5:17 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
More baby porcupine.
July 10, 2025 at 4:34 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
There’s a baby porcupine (a porcupette!).
July 10, 2025 at 4:30 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
On July 4th, we celebrate the birthday of Elizabeth Peratrovich, the Lingít civil rights leader who co-drafted and fought for the passage of the first state or territorial anti-discrimination legislation in the U.S.
A photo of Lingít civil rights leader, Elizabeth Peratrovich, alongside her quote: Asking you to give me equal rights implies that they are yours to give. Instead, I must demand that you stop trying to deny me the rights all people deserve."
July 4, 2025 at 12:40 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Seemed like a good time to install my new flagpole.
A sky blue flag with a white peace sign mounted on A spruce tree.
June 22, 2025 at 1:58 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
These folks and their mom are paying me a visit. (Photo taken through the window of my house)
Two moose calves standing at the edge of the forest.
June 20, 2025 at 6:27 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Please meet my old, deeply loved, and forever missed dog Séamus.
An old, deeply loved, and forever missed black lab/husky mix smiling with tongue out on a red couch.
June 13, 2025 at 6:28 PM
shannonkellydonahue.com
From the Séamus Heaney exhibition, Listen Now Again, in Dublin.

Anything can happen,
the tallest towers

Be overturned,
those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded.
A panel from the Séamus Heaney exhibition in Dublin. Anything can happen, the tallest towers Be overturned, those in high places daunted, Those overlooked regarded. From the poem “Anything Can Happen” in District and Circle.
June 13, 2025 at 4:06 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
A little over two years since Tiger died, and I'm still finding stray tennis balls. I'm at the stage of grief where I can smile and think of moments like this rather than crying and feeling my heart turn inside out.
A border collie/beagle mix lying on a comfy bed hugging a brand new mesh sack of fresh tennis balls with her front legs.
June 5, 2025 at 2:25 AM
shannonkellydonahue.com
Goodbye, Storyknife, and thank you for everything, Erin, Maura, Katie, and Dana! @beingpoetry.bsky.social @storyknife.bsky.social
View from the deck at Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer Alaska. In view is mount Iliamna and Cook Inlet under a brilliant blue sky, and three green writers’ cabins.
May 28, 2025 at 7:49 PM