Martha Andrews Donovan

Before COA

Martha Andrews Donovan came to COA after three decades of teaching at both the secondary and college level, including sixteen years at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire where she was Professor of Writing. As a teacher, Martha brings to the classroom her passion for guiding students to discover the possibilities and agency of their own voices as they learn to embrace the writing/re-vision process in all its messiness and urgency. As a practicing writer, Martha believes that words matter – that they have beauty and heft and consequence.

Course Areas

Memoir writing, writing analysis

• BA, Williams College, American Civilization, 1980
• MA, Middlebury College, Bread Loaf School of English, 1989

Writer’s Statement:
As a writer, I explore the intersections between memory, image, and narrative, and the ways in which the things we unearth – photographs, artifacts, ephemera, and other fragmentary evidence – can help narrate a life. In a landscape defined by rocky ledges and intertidal spaces – a place that speaks directly and metaphorically to the beauty and the risks of venturing beyond the edges – I am drawn to the liminal. I am interested in matters of the heart – love, loss, grief, hope – and the way tenderness and curiosity can lead us to the unexpected. Moments of awe and moments of sorrow are all part of the larger experience of reading the landscapes before me. Above all, I love the way the ordinary can stun us into a contemplation of the extraordinary. Here on this island, at the edge of land and sea, I feel on the threshold of something that is tender and sweet and complicated and uncertain and hopeful.

In addition to her poetry chapbook Dress Her in Silk (Finishing Line Press, 2009), Martha’s work has appeared in various publications, including English Journal, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Off the Coast, and Marlboro Review. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have been included in several anthologies, including The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices From the Robert Frost Place, Volume 2 (CavanKerry Press, 2004); Poet Showcase: An Anthology of New Hampshire Poets (Hobblebush Books, 2015); The Mud Chronicles: A New England Anthology (Monadnock Writers’ Group, 2018); and (online) The Waves: A Confluence of Voices (A Room of Her Own Foundation, 2022). Her writing (in collaboration with artists) has been exhibited at the New England College Art Gallery (2012) and the Wendell Gilley Museum (2021). Other published writing includes her feature articles in Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors about growing up on the coast of Maine.