Who
Patrick Range McDonald is an activist, award-winning journalist, and best-selling author. As an investigative reporter at L.A. Weekly, he won the “Journalist of the Year” award from the Los Angeles Press Club and the national “Public Service” award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. As an advocacy journalist for one of the leading housing justice organizations in the United States, McDonald won the “Best Activism Journalism” award from the Los Angeles Press Club. He also wrote a book about AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the world’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit, and co-wrote the best-selling memoir of former Los Angeles mayor Richard J. Riordan.
Through his longtime work in journalism and activism, and through his extensive traveling around the world, McDonald holds a unique understanding of life, power, and how the world operates. It informs all his writing. (He also likes to have fun.)
What
Letters From Over Here is a way for McDonald to communicate with his readers, as if he’s writing letters to a dear, old friend.
Where
McDonald is based in Los Angeles, California, and Letters From Over Here can be followed at Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook.
When
No fixed schedule. McDonald is very busy with various writing projects. But he wants to communicate regularly with people.
Why
Read “Who” and “What” (above) and “P.S.” (below). Additionally, McDonald is guided by these thoughts:
“If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be. Perhaps I have never asked myself whether I really wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become. Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all. I would be liberated from the painful duty of saying what I really do not think and acting in a way that betrays God’s truth and the integrity of my own soul.”
— Thomas Merton
“On the road again/ Like a band o’ gypsies we go down the highway. We’re the best of friends/ Insisting that the world keep turning our way. And our way…”
— Willie Nelson
How
By subscribing, you’ll be notified of every new letter by McDonald. Paid subscribers and founding members will have complete access to Letters From Over Here. Download the Substack app, if you like.
P.S.
By being a paid subscriber or founding member, you’ll do two things: 1) grow a righteous, global community at Letters From Over Here and 2) help McDonald pay the bills and expand his work. Both are super important. So we’re very grateful for our paid subscribers and founding members.
To show our appreciation, you can drop McDonald a personal note at any time, and he’ll get back to you at some point. It’ll be a private, one-to-one chat between you and McDonald. We won’t publish it. (For each individual, please don’t overdo it with the notes. It’s just a matter of time management for McDonald.)
We’ll also figure out other ways to show our gratitude.
Lastly, McDonald founded a second Substack publication called MacDomhnall’s, which publishes his narrative nonfiction and investigative journalism. You may like to subscribe to MacDomhnall’s (pronounced “Mac-DOH-null’s”) as well. Click here for more information.
Want to know more? Visit Substack.com.
