Barbara Mahany

Barbara Mahany is an author, essayist, and journalist in Chicago, whose work examines the quotidian through a sacred lens, be it the cacophonies of the modern-day domestic melee, the quietudes of nature, or the fear-fueled abyss in the wake of a cancer diagnosis.

She was a reporter and feature writer at the Chicago Tribune for nearly 30 years, and before that a pediatric oncology nurse at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Her sixth and latest book, "Broken Open: How Our Most Fragile Seasons Invite Us to Extravagant Love" (Brazos Press, February 2027), is a tender chronicling of the unexpected spiritual epiphanies in the wake of a rare lung cancer diagnosis. Pádraig Ó Tuama, the poet and host of Poetry Unbound, wrote of her latest work: "Mahany is a poet of the heart. This is a beautiful book."

Her first book, "Slowing Time: Seeing the Sacred Outside Your Kitchen Door" (Abingdon Press, 2014) has been called “a field guide into the depths of your holiest hours,” and was named by Publishers Weekly as one of their Top 10 religion books for Fall 2014. Of her fifth book, "The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God's First Sacred Text" (Broadleaf Books, 2023), it was written: "If 'Slowing Time' was a field guide to the depths of your holiest hours, 'The Book of Nature' is a field guide to the depths of your holiest places."

Mahany is married to Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin (formerly with the Chicago Tribune). They have two sons: Will, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, and Teddy, a line cook and burgeoning journalist in Chicago, who is the creator of "Chefs' Tribune," an online platform for telling the stories of those who animate Chicago restaurant kitchens.