В Хэрисонберге пройдет вечер с дочерью Марты Вудруф и редакторами её посмертной книги

WMRA's September Books & Brews will feature Erica Cavanagh and Jack Greer, editors of 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. Tuesday, September 8th, at 7pm - live at Pale Fire Brewing Company in Harrisonburg. Signed copies of Life's a Wander: Martha Woodroof in Her Own Words will be available at the event and online at Stone Soup Books. 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 the Book 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.” “[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!” About our guests: Erica Cavanagh Erica Cavanagh grew up in Rochester, New York, and served in the Peace Corps in Benin from 1997-1999. She is a graduate of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Her writing has appeared in the Missouri Review, the Iowa Review, North American Review, Gastronomica, Bellevue Literary Review, Off Assignment, The Journal, and elsewhere, including the collections Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us and Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World. She is currently editing a nonfiction collection, Come and Eat:Essays on Food and Care for the Dispossessed forthcoming from UVA Press. She also co-edited Martha Woodroof's posthumous essay collection Life's a Wander: Martha Woodroof in Her Own Words.  Erica is the recipient of the Ruth Murray Prize, Iowa Arts Fellowship, Missouri Review’s Editor’s Prize, Mid-Atlantic Arts Fellowship, Valley Arts Council Grant, Pushcart nomination, and an artist residency at Millay Arts. She teaches Creative Nonfiction Writing, Food Studies, Trauma Studies, and African American Literature at James Madison University and lives in the Shenandoah Valley with her family. Jack Greer Jack Greer has been writing for all his adult life. His first short story collection is Abraham’s Bay & Other Stories (Dryad Press, 2009). The Montserrat Review said of the collection that “[Greer] is a wonderful storyteller and a poetic, powerful writer.” Sailing magazine said, “[The stories are] haunting as we sail into cold fronts, storms, and hearts of darkness. Greer... attempts to convey what that veteran sea captain and writer Joseph Conrad says, ‘Above all I want to make you see.’” The magazine Cruising World wrote: “A good book.... Grab a hot toddy and prepare for the ride.” Much of Greer’s nonfiction writing has focused on the water, and especially on the Chesapeake Bay. For more than thirty years he wrote about, and got engaged in, marine affairs for the University of Maryland Sea Grant College. He has written hundreds of articles about marine science and policy and the Chesapeake. He co-founded and co-edited the magazine Chesapeake Quarterly. He was co-editor and co-author of Chesapeake Futures, a glimpse at the possible futures that await the Chesapeake, depending on what actions we take and when. Greer has won acclaim for his fiction, including two cash awards from the Maryland State Arts Council for his short stories, and a Baltimore Artscape Award. His story “Sunday at Walmart” was one of the winners of an NPR short-short story competition judged by radio host Scott Simon (November 2010). He has also received citations from the governor of Maryland and from the University of Maryland for his environmental work. Greer’s poetry has appeared in small magazines, including the online Beltway Journal, where he most recently contributed a poem to a collection honoring Langston Hughes, and the journal Artemis, which published his poem, "Flowers for Heather Heyer." Greer and his wife, Bobbie, currently reside in a cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains. Liz Gipson Liz Gipson is the daughter of Martha Woodroof and the steward of her literary rights. Liz comes from a long line of makers and storytellers, having made her home at the intersection of the two. Residing in New Mexico, where she weaves, writes about weaving, and teaches others to weave. As the author of four books on the subject, she is currently working on her fifth. You can learn more about Liz at Yarnworker.com.