Martha Cooney is a Philadelphia native and a teacher, writer and comedian/storyteller.
COMEDY AND STORYTELLING
Martha is a four-time winner of Best of Philly’s First Person Arts story slam storytelling competitions at WXPN’s World Café Live and L’Etage, and performed in the First Person Arts Festival 2011 Fall Grand Slam. She has performed as a guest storyteller with BalletX, Fibber Storytelling Series, and Young Involved Philadelphia, and in improv comedy shows at the Shubin Theater. Martha trains with the Philadelphia Improv Theater and has been featured on the First Person Arts blog and in Philebrity online magazine.
STORY UP!
Martha performs as a Guest Storyteller and Story and Writing Workshop instructor with StoryUP! for children from preschool to teen at schools and organizations in the Philadelphia region, including Mighty Writers and the Free Library of Philadelphia. She assistant directs children’s theater productions with Arts Tech Solutions and has been a contributing writer for the Music Training Center children’s theater productions.
EDUCATION AND TEACHING
Martha is an English degree graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied fiction writing and children’s literature and trained in literacy teaching methods with Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Martha founded Jabberwocky, the popular children’s writing circle at the Kelly Writers House, and was a recipient of the Phi Kappa Sigma award for fiction.
Martha holds a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education from City College New York, where she studied educational theater and the Vivian Gussin Paley storytelling curriculum, and in her research focused on Children’s Storytelling.
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As a preschool teacher in New York City, Martha developed an innovative storytelling series and story workshop model for young children. Martha also served as a founding instructor and curriculum developer for the successful Brooke Jackman Family Literacy program in New York City. She has also worked as an after school program director and summer camp assistant director and instructor at camps in Philadelphia, New York City, and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
WRITING
Martha has had work published in Cricket children’s magazine, Up the Beanstalk children’s literature journal, Verbal Arts and Culture Northern Ireland magazine, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and many other print and online publications. She is at work on a collection of humorous essays that are the basis for her in-development one-woman show, Walk Me Through Your Resume, as well as a middle-grade novel with the support of the Milestones local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
