Kelly Jo McDonnell is a Twin Cities-based outdoor/nature writer and producer with long-running outdoor series, Minnesota Bound.
What are your areas of Outdoor Communication?
I have past background in working for a nature nonprofit and radio broadcasting, but my main jam is being a full-time TV writer and producer for Ron Schara Productions, an outdoor/nature production hub in the Twin Cities. I’ve squeezed in travel writing for the Minnesota Star Tribune and Explore Minnesota and others over the years. I joined Ron Schara Productions in 1996, so I chalked up my 30th year this May!
What drew you to the field?
It was all I ever knew, really. The outdoors was always part of my childhood, and my first few jobs were in that genre. I wanted to design a profession that I loved and that gave back to what was important to me. My father called to tell me that he heard through his grape vine (legend has it the grapevine was his friend Gary Roach) that Ron Schara was starting a nature show in the Twin Cities. I was working at a Mpls. PR agency at the time and trying to break into the Twin City TV market. He suggested I pick up the phone and ask Ron for a job and name drop him. I did. And Mr. Schara picked up the phone.
What is your favorite outdoor activity and how did you get into it?
I grew up in small-town, northwest Iowa, and my father, Jim McDonnell, was an outdoor legend in his own right. I grew up fishing, camping, kayaking, morel mushroom hunting and trapping; he made sure I was exposed to it all! He not only guided on the Iowa Great Lakes, he also was a hall-of-fame Iowa girls BB coach, so I loved sports and played 4 years of basketball in college. Many nights, after bb practice, I had to head out on the trapline with “coach” dad to run night traps. But make no mistake, the OUTDOOOR sports took precedence; he made sure of that! So, thanks to my dad, I pretty much love anything as long as it’s outdoors!
What are you currently working on?
The main show I write and produce for is Minnesota Bound, which airs #52 weeks a year, so I’m producing and writing year-around! We were all recently in Wabasha, Minnesota where we filmed a “MN. Bound Hits the Road” special. Mother Nature decided to drop icy rain on us the entire time, but that’s usually what she likes to do when we plan something like this. I’m setting up spring stories now to film in the field, while I’m logging video and writing summer stories from last year that are coming up for air. It’s a big, ever turning wheel. But a fun wheel.
What have you gained from joining OWAA?
I believe it helped with my confidence level. I was awarded the John Madson Fellowship some years ago, and that was a great boost to attend some extra writing seminars to hone the craft. After my father passed, I started the Jim McDonnell Scholarship nonprofit; we award scholarships for students going into the conservation field. I’m President of the Board. OWAA has helped me not only with the craft of outdoor writing, but with networking and learning the ropes of outdoor business as a whole.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone thinking of joining OWAA?
Do it. Plain and simple. For me, the best way to learn was to jump in the deep waters with the best writer’s and try to swim with them. Scary? Yes. Worth it? 100%.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’m married to an award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker (yep-he used to work at Ron Schara Productions back in the day), Cy Dodson. So, it’s fun to collaborate with him on projects, especially if he’s doing some freelance for us. Like many of the photojournalist’s I work with, he’s darn talented and uber creative, so it’s fun to learn from him on how to tell better stories! He mainly works on documentary films now, so it’s been cool to see how that medium’s process is broken down, but how it shares a vein with what we do in outdoor television storytelling.
Below: Kelly Jo with her dad, Jim McDonnell, during one of their fly-fishing adventures while filming for Minnesota Bound.
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