WMRA Books & Brews: Martha Woodroof’s “Life’s a Wander”
September 8 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Join us Tuesday, Sep. 8th as Erica Cavanagh and Jack Greer discuss Life’s a Wander: Martha Woodroof in Her Own Words, a posthumous collection of Woodroof’s essays. We will also be joined by Martha Woodroof’s daughter, Liz Gipson.
Live at Pale Fire Brewing Company and available later on WMRA’s Youtube Channel.
Signed copies of Life’s a Wander will be available at the event and online at Stone Soup Books – https://www.stonesoupbooks.net
WMRA’s Books & Brews is made possible thanks to our series sponsor, Gaines Group Architects. The Gaines Group has offices in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg.
About Life’s a Wander:
After years of writing and reporting as a journalist for radio, television, and in print, at the age of sixty-seven, Martha Woodroof published a debut novel, Small Blessings (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). The Oprah book club described the book as “a charmer: quirky, clearhearted and effervescent.” The Library Journal called it “a warm, caring, and thoroughly entertaining debut … NPR pro Woodroof is no novice writer, and her first novel will have readers eager for more.” Both the novel and Woodroof’s public radio career validated her triumph over years of emotional struggle and alcohol addiction. Then in 2016, while continuing her work for WMRA, her prospects quickly changed with a rare form of stage IV cancer, with no known treatment.
After years of writing and reporting as a journalist for radio, television, and in print, at the age of sixty-seven, Martha Woodroof published a debut novel, Small Blessings (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). The Oprah book club described the book as “a charmer: quirky, clearhearted and effervescent.” The Library Journal called it “a warm, caring, and thoroughly entertaining debut … NPR pro Woodroof is no novice writer, and her first novel will have readers eager for more.” Both the novel and Woodroof’s public radio career validated her triumph over years of emotional struggle and alcohol addiction. Then in 2016, while continuing her work for WMRA, her prospects quickly changed with a rare form of stage IV cancer, with no known treatment.
Realizing her time was limited, Woodroof turned to writing a rush of flash nonfiction she called “splats.” The language in these pieces moves fast, by design. She recalls a quote from Samuel Johnson: “Knowing you’ll soon be hanged wonderfully concentrates the mind …”
Life’s a Wander gathers these engaging essays, shaped thematically, with a foreword by Erica Cavanagh, professor of creative nonfiction at James Madison University; and two afterwords, one by her daughter, Liz Gipson, who lived through many of the events described in these pages, and another by Martha’s author friend Susan Hasler, who writes of these splats: “You should read them — a dose of Martha is good for your health and happiness.”
From Life’s a Wander:
“I shall write this as I lived it — all over the place; emotionally, professionally, geographically… Life is, after all, a wander, not a plot.”
“I shall write this as I lived it — all over the place; emotionally, professionally, geographically… Life is, after all, a wander, not a plot.”
“[Robert] Altman wasted no time in coming over, shaking my hand, looking me up and down, asking if I’d like to come to Minnesota and appear in his next movie, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie…. There it was, my brilliant movie career unfolding … McCabe and Mrs. Miller … and Martha!”
“I think of chemo as legions of Paleolithic, micro-inch cavepeople marching around in my body, randishing clubs and whacking every cell in sight. There’s one! Healthy? Malignant? Who cares? Whack! There goes my hair! Whack! There goes my beloved independence! Whack! … There goes my ability to write more than a sentence or two at a time. Whack on, McDuff!”
