As a young woman, Nancy Waddel was briefly the assistant editor of the Chillicothe Daily News.

[1] Novels by Nancy Waddel Woodrow, many of them focused on women characters in American West, included The Bird of Time (1907),[2] The New Missioner (1907),[3][4] The Silver Butterfly (1908, titled The Veiled Mariposa in serial form),[5] The Beauty (1910),[6] Sally Salt (1912),[7] The Hornet's Nest (1917),[8] Swallowed Up (1922),[9] Burned Evidence (1925), Come Alone (1929), The Second Chance (1931), and The Pawns of Murder (1932).

[10] She also wrote many short stories and essays published in magazines, and one play (The Universal Impulse, 1911).

[1] At least two dozen films were made from stories by Nancy Waddel Woodrow,[11] starting from A Gypsy Madcap (1914) through six more "Olive" shorts starring Mabel Trunnelle in 1914 and 1915,[12] and The Piper's Price (1917), and ending with the only sound adaptation, Without Children (1935).

"[13] Nancy Mann Waddel married mining engineer James Wilson Woodrow in 1897.