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An Evening with Barbara Mahany
Join the CCFW for an evening with award-winning journalist and former oncology nurse Barbara Mahany as she discusses her new book, Broken Open, in which she recounts the rare cancer diagnosis that reshaped her life and invited her to see the world differently. Perfect for readers navigating grief, illness, or disruption, Broken Open is a hopeful meditation on living with deeper faith and courage in the present moment.
Following the talk, books will be available for purchase, and Barbara will be available to say hello and sign your copy.
This event is hosted in partnership with Brazos Press.
About 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.