The story below is from our January/February 2026 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Listen to or watch our podcast episode with Beth Macy as we chat about her new book, the craft of writing and the power of community.
The Star City’s people and opportunities shaped bestselling author Beth Macy into the writer she became.
Maredith Roller
It was 1989 when 25-year-old reporter Beth Macy packed her life into her wheezing VW and headed north. After two years working in Savannah, Georgia, she’d landed a feature writing job at The Roanoke Times, in a city where she knew no one.
“At that time,” Macy shares with a laugh in her colorful Raleigh Court kitchen, “it was really hard as a new reporter to get a parking spot” at work. She recalls her bosses asking if she wanted to put her name on the waiting list. “And I’m like, ‘Nah. I’m not going to be here that long.’”
But Macy didn’t leave. Instead, she married, had two kids, earned a master’s at Hollins University, and spent 25 years writing long-form stories for The Roanoke Times. Since 2014, she has penned five acclaimed books all featuring (at least in part) her adopted city. Her latest, “Paper Girl,” was published last October.
“That’s been one of the remarkable things about Beth,” says Carole Tarrant, a top editor at The Roanoke Times from 2005-2013. “She could have been working at any big paper by now — long ago. But that was not her wish because she is so anchored in this community.”
Courtesy of Beth Macy
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
Over the years, Macy says, the people she met in Roanoke, the articles she reported, the colleagues and editors who encouraged and taught her, they all shaped the writer she would become, an author heralded for her heartfelt storytelling that lifts up the marginalized and forgotten: factory workers, disenfranchised Black people, addicts.
“It’s the humanity of her story selection, her approach, the writing. All of these things add up with Beth,” says Roanoke author Roland Lazenby, who has written more than 60 nonfiction books, mostly chronicling the careers of NBA and NFL players. “I admire her deeply.”
Macy, born and raised in Urbana, Ohio, quickly connected with Roanoke. “It just immediately felt like home,” she remembers. “Even more than Ohio, because people in Ohio are very reserved and modest, whereas here, there’s a more Appalachian feel, more storytelling, and that just suited my personality better.”
Soon, she met her future husband Tom Landon through mutual friends. They were married in September 1990, and settled into a happy life surrounded by journalists, filmmakers, and educators, including Landon’s uncle, Frosty Landon, long-time editor of The Roanoke Times. Frosty and his wife Barbara became stand-in parents for Macy and Landon.
But it was Macy’s work at the newspaper that rooted her in her new place and taught her the skills she needed to realize her dreams.
Features editor Wendy Zomparelli (who would go on to become The Roanoke Times’ first female editor and then first female publisher) hired Macy. Macy recalls Zomparelli was an exacting boss, requiring her to follow strict journalism protocols. At the time, Roanoke’s population was 23% Black, so every story Macy wrote was expected to have one quarter Black voices. “Because of that,” Macy says, “I developed sources in the Black community that I still rely on to this day.”
The culture at The Roanoke Times in the 1990s and 2000s was steeped in staff development. Reporters regularly attended skills-building workshops and were given time off to pursue projects.
As a result, the newspaper attracted and retained top talent, such as Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Mary Bishop. “Mary Bishop was a huge influence in my early career,” Macy says. “She taught me that it was okay to treat people you wrote about like real human beings.”
Macy’s fellow feature writer Ralph Berrier, Jr. (who published “If Trouble Don’t Kill Me” in 2010) would introduce her to her first literary agent. “Pound for pound this region produces a ton of writers, and we all help each other,” Macy says.
Exponential growth for Macy arrived in 2005, when The Roanoke Times hired Tarrant as managing editor. Tarrant recognized Macy’s potential and her drive. She moved Macy from features to news and encouraged her to think deeply about the causes behind the breaking news.
Over nearly a decade, Macy and Tarrant worked together on series covering Roanoke’s resettled refugees, aging population, opioid overdoses and factory closures in nearby towns. Macy would go on to turn two of these investigations into her books “Dopesick” and “Factory Man.”
It was the factory closings that opened the door to book writing for Macy. When Macy reported that series, she had recently returned from studying at Harvard University on a prestigious Nieman Fellowship.
She knew she wanted to turn the series into a book. As she attended the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins in January 2011, she stopped by Lazenby’s session on how to write a book proposal.
“I sat in the back,” Macy remembers. “And he put his email on the whiteboard, which nobody with his stature just says, ‘Feel free to contact me. …’ But I did. And he walked me through that proposal … step by step. He would send me these little cheer-up notes that were like: ‘You’re a great American writer’ … and I would write them out on little sticky notes and put them on my computer.”
Macy sold her book in 2012 to the same editor who bought Lazenby’s “Michael Jordan: The Life” at Little, Brown and Company. When she sold her second book, “Truevine,” about two Black brothers from Roanoke forced to join the circus because they were albinos, she could picture her future as a full-time nonfiction book writer.
Last October, Macy published her fifth book, “Paper Girl,” a memoir of her early life in Ohio and an investigation into the polarization that’s made it almost impossible for people to stay connected across political differences.
Roanoke makes an appearance in this book, too, as Macy argues the decline of legacy journalism is one of the reasons for the divide. “Gone is the coverage that once held neighborhoods together – not just local investigations, but also editorials and news of local businesses, schools and neighbors in need and community-celebration stories about people,” she writes, sharing examples of stories she wrote for The Roanoke Times.
Why would a bestselling author stay in Roanoke when she could live and work anywhere?
“Because it’s awesome,” Macy says. “In a place like Roanoke, you can know all kinds of people,” she says.
“I think because people are so friendly, that makes it easier to tell the stories that explain who our neighbors are and who we are.”
Macy says that when she was wrapping up her Nieman Fellowship, she talked with colleagues about what lay ahead. One said: “I think you need to go back to Roanoke … because that’s where the soul meets the bone for you. That’s where your best work happens.”
Macy, who is running for the 6th District seat in the US House of Representatives, leans forward into a beam of sunlight, her gray cardigan wrapped tightly around her. “I’m just really glad I stayed.”
Editor’s Note: Hear Beth Macy and Roland Lazenby in conversation at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins on January 16-17. Register at hollins.edu/roanokewriters.
And catch our recent podcast interview with Beth Macy over at TheRoanoker.com/podcast.
The story above is from our January/February 2026 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!