 Wood credits her political awakening to reading Marge Piercy's 1976 feminist classic "Woman on the Edge of Time", and the 1984-85 UK miners' strike.Her political heroes include Lewis Lewis, one of the leaders of the 1831 Merthyr Rising.After joining Plaid Cymru in 1991 aged 20, Wood was elected a Councillor for the Penygraig ward on Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in 1995, she did not recontest the seat in 1999.