Growing up in a 1930s suburb of woods and fields in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, independence—and reading—came easily to Martha. After graduation from Mt. Lebanon High School, she attended the University of Maine in Orono. She studied history and government—an interest she continued by earning a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia while teaching at the Charles Ellis School for Girls.
Her passion for writing remained constant. Feature articles in Yankee magazine, about sardine fishing and blueberry harvesting, were her first nationally published works. Two successful novels and a nonfiction book followed, as well as years as a newspaper columnist for Portsmouth Magazine in New Hampshire and the Ellsworth American in Maine. She taught creative writing courses for twenty years at the University of New Hampshire; as a visiting professor at the University of Washington, Spokane; and at numerous conferences, including Molasses Pond in Maine and New Hampshire.
For decades, she made her home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the far Downeast coast of Maine with her partner and cat. Her family grew from two sons and a daughter to include five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.