Martha M. Vertreace-Doody

Vertreace-Doody's work focused on American experiences, as a black woman in the Chicago region, as a participant in American history, and as a community activist. She was involved in Chicago’s Catholic and African American communities, serving as a time as an editor of Community Magazine at Friendship House in Chicago, and publishing poetry in the National Catholic Reporter. In other editorial work, she served as a member of the board of trustees of Illinois Writers Review and as a member of the advisory board of City Magazine. She also served as a judge for grant provided by the Illinois Arts Council and the Wisconsin Arts Board. She was twice a Fellow at the Hawthornden International Writers' Retreat in Scotland. Her literary career aligned with a growing movement emerging after the 1950s of academic institutions in Chicago to foster poets. Vertreace-Doody was the featured Illinois poet in the winter 1988 issue of Spoon River Quarterly. She was a featured poet in Maverick Magazine in 1999. Her poems have appeared in anthologies including Illinois Voices: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry (University of Illinois Press), Poets of the New Century (David R. Godine Publisher), and Manthology: Poems on the Male Experience (University of Iowa Press) and The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody Publishing). Her 2014 work, In This Glad Hour, was based on a study of diaries and letters from 1824 to 1848, to create a collection of poems that chronicles and gives voice to the life of Elizabeth Duncan, the wife of Joseph Duncan, the sixth governor of Illinois.

Vertreace-Doody was born in Washington, D.C. She earned degrees in English from District of Columbia’s Teachers College (BA in 1967) and Roosevelt University (MA, 1972), an MS in Religious Studies from Mundelein College in 1982, and an MFA from Vermont College (1996). She was married to Timothy John Doody. Vertreace-Doody died in November of 2022.

• 1993. Martha M. Vertreace and Sandra Speidel. Kelly in the Mirror.

• 1989. Martha M. Vertreace. "Secrets left to tell: creativity and continuity in the mother-daughter dyad". Mother Puzzles: Daughters and Mothers in Contemporary American Literature, Mickey Pearlman (ed). New York: Greenwood Press. • 1989. Martha M. Vertreace. "Toni Cade Bambara: The Dance of Character and Community", American Women Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family, Space, Mickey Pearlman (ed). University of Kentucky Press. • 1993. Martha M. Vertreace. "StreetWise Writers: Use of StreetWise in Creative Writing Classes", ERIC. • 2003. Martha Modena Vertreace-Doody. "In Hyde Park: Momentary Stay Against Confusion", In the Middle of the Middle West: Literary Nonfiction from the Heartland, Becky Bradway (ed). Indiana University Press.