Martha Anne Toll won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction for her debut novel, THREE MUSES. THREE MUSES came out in Autumn 2022, received a warm welcome, and and was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize. Her second novel, DUET FOR ONE, is due out in the spring of 2025.

Martha's fiction has also appeared in ​Catapult, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, eMerge, Slush Pile Magazine, Yale's Letters Journal, Poetica E Magazine, and elsewhere.Martha's essays and reviews appear regularly on NPR and in The Millions; as well as in the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, Fjord Review, Washington Post's The Lily, The Rumpus, Bloom, Scoundrel Time, Music & Literature, Words Without Borders, After the Art, Narrative Magazine, [PANK] Magazine, Cargo Literary, Tin House blog, The Nervous Breakdown, Heck Magazine, and the Washington Independent Review of Books. Her personal essay, "Dayenu," was selected for an anthology featuring a range of well-known writers. Martha has been a nominator and critic for NPR's annual book concierge since 2017.

Martha serves on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and makes frequent appearances on podcasts and bookstores around the country

Martha completed 26 years as the Founding Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based Butler Family Fund, a path-breaking social justice philanthropy governed by a family board in the US and the UK. Martha led the Fund's strategies and programming, with a deep commitment to racial equity in all of its work. Under Martha's leadership the Fund developed its two major funding areas: advocacy to prevent and end homelessness and advocacy to reform criminal justice, with particular focus on abolishing the death penalty and ending the sentence of juvenile life without parole. Martha led the formation of a long-term partnership with the Geneva-based Oak Foundation, helping to expand Oak's US footprint and to catalyze national work around employing people experiencing homelessness, ending the connection between criminal justice involvement and homelessness, and working to de-fund the criminal justice system. . 

Martha grew up in suburban Philadelphia and majored in music at Yale University, where she won the Dante Society of America’s prize for the best essay written by an undergraduate at an American or Canadian university. She performed as a violist in the Yale Symphony and numerous chamber music groups and other ensembles. She studied viola with Max Aronoff, a founding member of the Curtis String Quartet, and Lillian Fuchs, faculty at the Juilliard School. Martha received her law degree from the Boston University School of Law.

Website: www.marthaannetoll.com

Twitter Username: @marthaannetoll

Publications

• THREE MUSES , Regal House Publishing (September 20, 2022)

Awards

• Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction(2020)
• Shortlisted for Gotham Book Prize(2023)

Employment

• Executive Director at Butler Family Fund (November 1993 - June 2020)

Degrees

• Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University
• Doctoral Degree in Law (Juris Doctor) from Boston University

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction