Martha Woodroof
Retired Host of The SparkMarth Woodroof has retired from WMRA and is now spending her time as a full-time writer and published author.
Martha is both a college dropout (Mount Holyoke) and a graduate school dropout (the University of Virginia).
Her first real job was as a teacher’s aide in a pilot Head Start program in Greensboro, North Carolina. She's been with WMRA since the (latest) turn of the century, and has actively freelanced for the NPR Culture Desk and for npr.org.
Before that – among a lot of other things - she co-owned restaurants, did a bit of acting, was fired as a magazine editor, hosted local TV talk shows and anchored the news, wrote a book called How to Stop Screwing Up: 12 Steps to a Real Life and a Pretty Good Time, cooked for an artist’s colony, was a country music disc jockey and a psychiatric occupational therapy aide, taught preschool, published a bunch of essays, was a morning drive-time personality on a tiny AM radio station, ran a college bookstore coffee shop, directed a college’s co-curricular programming, and failed to sell cars. Many of the photographs accompanying her work were taken by her husband, Charlie.
She loves words and their power to tell other people’s stories.
Her daughter is spinner, weaver, author, and content provider, Liz Gipson.
Her first novel, Small Blessings, was published by St. Martin’s Press in the summer of 2014.
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On this episode of The Spark: Connie Doebele retired to Staunton after 25 years on C-SPAN as a host and producer. In the next two installments of The… -
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof sits down for a chat with Lulu Miller. Lulu lives half her life in Charlottesville, half in DC, and spends… -
WMRA's Martha Woodroof meets Waynesboro blues singer Lorie Strother, who grew up living on the streets of Boston. Now, even though she’s got five… -
On this episode of The Spark: Cory Lay tells us how he stumbled upon an opportunity to become a Duck Pin Bowling technician at Harrisonburg's new Ruby's… -
On this episode of The Spark: Martha continues her conversation with Peter Van Acker about his merry Cuban adventures... and they talk a lot about the… -
On this episode of The Spark: Peter Van Acker, and his wife Susan, have traveled all over the world. They recently went to Cuba because they wanted to… -
On this episode of The Spark: Anastasia Suslaev came to America at the age of 10, knowing two words of English. Since then she'd gotten her undergraduate… -
On this episode of The Spark: Part two of our conversation with Scott Price. Scott had never wanted anything but a career in the Army. Then a back injury… -
On this episode of The Spark: Scott Price discusses his time in the Army. Scott, as a VMI graduate and Army Captain, wanted nothing more than to be a good… -
On this episode of The Spark: Martha speaks with climate journalist and research scholar Stephen Nash. He discusses his passion for telling the stories…
