Dudman, Martha Tod 1952–

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Dudman, Martha Tod 1952–

PERSONAL: Born January 4, 1952, in St. Louis, MO; daughter of Richard Beebe (a journalist) and Helen (a public relations director; maiden name, Sloane) Dudman; divorced; children: Georgia Manning, Richard Francis. Education: Antioch College, B.A., 1974.

ADDRESSES: Home—East Harbor, ME. Agent—Betsy Lerner, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner, 27 W. 20th St., Ste. 1003, New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Writer. During early career, worked as a teacher; former president and general manager, Dudman Communications Corp. (broadcasting company), 1990–99; currently a professional fundraiser for nonprofit groups.

MEMBER: National Association of Broadcasters (member of board of directors), Bangor Rotary Club (vice president).

WRITINGS:

Dawn (novella and short stories), Puckerbrush Press (Orono, ME), 1989.

Augusta, Gone: A True Story (memoir), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

Expecting to Fly: A Sixties Reckoning, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Puckerbrush Review and New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS: Martha Tod Dudman is a writer whose own life provides ample grist for books on parenting and growing up in wild times. Her publications include Augusta, Gone: A True Story, a memoir that recounts her traumatic relationship with her teenage daughter, and Expecting to Fly: A Sixties Reckoning, the story of Dudman's own reckless youth. Dudman began writing in the mid-1970s after graduating from Antioch College, but after failing to interest publishers in a pair of manuscripts, she turned to working as a teacher. After becoming a wife and mother, she befriended Constance Hunting, a University of Maine professor who published the Puckerbrush Review and operated Puck-erbrush Press. Dudman supplied various stories to Puckerbrush Review, and, in 1989, she issued her first book, Dawn, with Puckerbrush Press.

After her marriage ended in divorce, Dudman halted her literary career and assumed the presidency of Dudman Communications Corporation, a group of radio stations that had been directed by her mother. "It was a tough decision," Dudman recalled on the Writers Write Web site. During the ensuing few years, Dudman wrote another book, but she otherwise devoted herself to parenting and running the broadcasting business. "I felt like I didn't have any room in my head, just to wander around and think about writing," she told Cheryl Dellasega in Writers Write. "I learned how to run a business, and enjoyed it, but there was still something missing."

After leaving broadcasting in 1998, Dudman returned to writing, and in 2001 she published Augusta, Gone: A True Story, "an unflinching description of an adolescent rebellion that nearly destroyed a family," as Martha Beck described it in the New York Times. The book is about Dudman's relationship with her teenage daughter as the child struggled with drugs, crime, and depression. Dudman's "searing honesty," Amy Waldman wrote in People, affected many reviewers. Book contributor Ann Collette noted that Augusta, Gone is "compelling," and Daniel Paul Simmons III, writing in a Publishers Weekly piece, described it as a "visceral" experience.

Dudman told Simmons that she kept Augusta, Gone from her daughter until the book reached the galley stage. "She kept bugging me to read it," Dudman told Publishers Weekly, "but I didn't want her to try to change it." When Dudman finally did let her daughter read an advance copy, her daughter was proud of the result. "She was living in San Diego at the time," Dudman told Cheryl Dellasega of Writers Write, "so I called and warned her that it might be tough to read, but that everything turned out okay. She must have sat down and read right through it, because she called back a few hours later and said she kept waiting to read that I didn't love her, and when that didn't happen, she realized how much I loved her."

Dudman "attempts to channel her teenage self and is unnervingly, uncomfortably effective" in Expecting to Fly, according to Joanne Wilkinson in Booklist. Dudman's own teenage rebellion began while living in Washington, DC, and continued at Antioch College, where she used drugs, indulged in casual sex, and adopted the hippie lifestyle. The author looks back with a clear memory and a sense of understanding and forgiveness for the incomplete individual she was during those years. A Kirkus Reviews critic praised Expecting to Fly as "perfectly remembered, unfiltered through the years." The critic concluded that the work is "as evident and actual as living theater." In Publishers Weekly a reviewer concluded that Dudman's tale of her "woollier years" is "surprisingly endearing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, March, 2001, Ann Collette, review of Augusta, Gone: A True Story, p. 79.

Booklist, March 1, 2001, Vanessa Bush, review of Augusta, Gone, p. 1211; January 1, 2004, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Expecting to Fly: A Sixties Reckoning, p. 813.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2004, review of Expecting to Fly, p. 22.

Library Journal, February 15, 2001, Linda Beck, review of Augusta, Gone, p. 192.

New York Times, March 18, 2001, Martha Beck, "Girl, Interrupted."

People, April 30, 2001, Amy Waldman, review of Augusta, Gone, p. 43.

Publishers Weekly, January 8, 2001, review of Augusta, Gone, p. 56; February 26, 2001, Daniel Paul Simmons III, "Like Mother, Like Mother," p. 26; December 15, 2003, review of Expecting to Fly, p. 60.