MacDonald attended Monash and Deakin Universities and RMIT as it was then called. In 1970 he met Charles Buckmaster through La Mama poets and they formed a close friendship during the last two years of Buckmaster's life, sharing travel and poetry. In 1971 MacDonald was editor of the first issue of Magnet, a typescript poetry magazine. He was founder and publisher of Wildgrass Books and in 1989 was publisher at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane.