Martha Woodroof

Martha Woodroof talks to Lydia Netzer about her experiences as a first-time novelist navigating the expectations of authors on social media beyond videos of Chihuahuas guarding food.

Martha Woodroof talks to first novelists including Chad Harbach (The Art Of Fielding) about how it feels to gut out the unlikely path that takes a book from idea to publication.

Martha Woodroof continues her series on first novels with a look at the book auction: how do they work, how do authors react to them, and how on earth to you celebrate a big success?

Martha Woodroof remembers a trip to Lawrence, Kansas, where she found her way to a house, and a yard, and an abandoned typewriter.

Martha Woodroof reports that to party with independent booksellers is to hear about their powerful commitment to their customers and perhaps an offbeat idea or two about theology and Road House.

Martha Woodroof looks at the process of acquiring a first novel from the point of view of publishers who both employ their own taste and then take care of the deal.

In the first of a series of posts about the process of publishing a first novel, Martha Woodroof talks to agents about how they fall in love with new authors.

Jessie Knadler's book, Rurally Screwed, tells a deceptively nuanced story about marriage and change, says commentator Martha Woodroof.

It took Michael David Lukas seven years to write his debut novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, but as Martha Woodroof writes, the long struggle was worth it. Woodroof speaks with Lukas about going by three names, the young girl who inspired his novel and going broke for one's writing dreams.

Fiction writing isn't for the faint of heart; it promises years of obscurity, little money, and no guarantee that anyone will ever read your work. Yet authors keep at it -- WMRA's Martha Woodroof caught up with two first-time novelists, Jessica Francis Kane and Susanna Daniel, to find out what it takes.