By Jeremy Z. Young
Freelance reporter, Martha Woodward, joined Knoxville Journal Managing Editor Nancy Morris July 14 to officially sign a book publishing contract with Arcadia Publishing.
Woodward’s upcoming book, titled “Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair,” will be a historic photo essay of the event that took Knoxville over for 180 days. Woodward has already published one book about the event called “Knoxville’s Sunsphere - Biography of a Landmark.”
Woodward said that she was first contacted by a photographer in California who had bought the Knoxville’s Sunsphere book at Amazon.com. He e-mailed one of his colleagues in New York who suggested Woodward contact Arcadia for additional publishing.
After extensive paperwork, Woodward was accepted to publish her upcoming book as part of the company’s Images of America Series. The 128 page book will follow a timeline of pictures before, during and after the 1982 World’s Fair.
“This just came out of the clear, blue sky,” Woodward said.
She said she already has a mass of pictures from her previous book, which took about four years of research to complete.
Some of those pictures came from former Knoxville Mayor Randy Tyree and other former mayors. The East Tennessee Historical Society has also allowed Woodward to include some of their photos. Locally-known news icons Bill Williams, Gene Patterson, Colvin Idol and others have also contributed.
Woodward hopes to include other pictures and memories as well. She can receive submissions through her e-mail sunspherebook@aol.com.
Arcadia has set a mid-October deadline for Woodward’s book, but hasn’t set a publishing date as of yet.
Woodward, a former 5th grade teacher, had always wanted to write books. After suffering from a non-operable lymphoma, she retired from the school system in 1999 and dedicated her time to writing.
“I was told in ‘98 that I would die in 3 months,” Woodward said.
Since then, she has developed her passion for writing even more.
Under the contract, Arcadia will publish, print and distribute Woodward’s photo essay.
Going back over 26 years in her mind, Woodward said, “Rabbits, rats, rubbish and railroad cars: that’s all that was on that site before the World’s Fair.”
Morris, who has had the pleasure of editing some of Woodward’s work since 2007 said, “I think its wonderful. It’s always good to see good things come to nice people.”
