Writer, copy editor, and educator who finds joy in reading, writing, and thinking along life’s trails

Martha Stoddard


About Martha Stoddard, Writer

Martha Stoddard is an experienced writer, educator, and instructional specialist. Years of teaching experiences investigating science and history topics with and modeling thinking skills for her students enhance her nonfiction writing. When she is between creative projects, Martha travels with husband David. Once they were turtle watching beside a pond. David mentioned to a passerby that his wife recognized each turtle that she saw. The stranger was amazed and asked, “How could this be?” David replied, “She has turtle recall!” She applies this talent for humor and details in her writing.

Martha grew up in Texas. An early love of pens, pencils, all types of papers, and her old portable typewriter led to lots of reading and adventures with different kinds of writing. Her grandmother’s tears when her family and she headed home from a weekend visit caused eight-year-old Martha to begin writing poetry. Shaping hill country images into poems, she would leave one on her pillow after each visit. Her grandmother began to happily wave good-bye and hurry to find each poem. To the grown-up Martha’s surprise and delight, her mother gave her a brown envelope containing the childhood poems which her grandmother had secretly saved. Martha still writes poetry today, often with her two grandsons. Her two adult daughters are poets, too. She loves collecting, writing for children, exploring nature, cooking, listening to traditional jazz music, researching, copyediting, and tutoring young readers as a volunteer.

Martha and family.

She went to college in Texas for her degree in elementary education and earned a master’s degree in Alabama. As a career teacher, Martha enabled her students to use writing as a process and their higher order thinking skills to become lifelong learners. She worked as a certified teacher trainer for a writing project and taught teachers ways to instruct children in writing.

Martha has published a narrative nonfiction children’s book, Nelly: The Turtle That Went to School and Found a Home for readers ages 8 - 12. Her published writing includes three articles in Writing Teacher magazine, a professional article in the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors (TEPSA) Journal, science and history writing for thematic reading kits and test preparation passages for educational publishers, an after-school grant program curriculum guide based upon multiple intelligences, publications for local nonprofit organizations, and newspaper feature articles. Martha is currently writing nonfiction books for children.

She is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and Editorial Freelancers Association. She continues collecting experiences for her writing through family travel adventures. She lives with her husband in Central Texas.

 
Stone turtle Turtle planter Ceramic turtle Needle point turtle Turtle beanie baby



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