Maura Mahoney

Editor/Writer

Washington, D.C. area

Maura Mahoney has worked as a writer and editor for national and regional publications, including Reader’s Digest, Congressional Quarterly, The Baffler, Colonial Williamsburg Publications, Bethesda Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Maura Mahoney

Editor/Writer

Washington, D.C. area

Six Civil Rights Museums Your Kids Will Never Forget
A sudden commotion behind me grew louder and closer. Angry, menacing voices escalated into a hailstorm of vicious heckling, all of it directed at the back of my head. I tried not to flinch. A man's heavy breathing, loud and ragged, was inches from my right ear. I closed my eyes for a moment, as if shutting down one sense would somehow shut down another.
The Huffington Post
Transferring to another college can be bumpy. Here’s how to help your child through it.
My husband knew early in his freshman year at the State University at Buffalo in New York that he wanted to transfer. He had a variety of reasons for wanting to leave, but 33 years later, he can clearly recall the moment that sealed the deal: “I was heading into a windowless basement classroom for a final, and it had just begun to snow.
The Washington Post
It’s Not All on the Mall: Washington, D.C.’s Hidden Highlights
According to the National Park Service, more than 25 million people visit Washington, D.C.’s National Mall each year — that’s more visitors than Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. While a pilgrimage to the Smithsonian museums, the memorials, the White House and the Capitol is a rite of passage for most American families, if they limit themselves to the Mall, they miss out on the many fascinating, enriching sites the D.C. area has to offer.
Family Vacation Critic
Educational Foundation's End-of-Year Giving Reminder Newsletter
We understand that typically, there are four stages of emotion people go through upon receiving our end-of-year giving reminder. Well, yes. But unfortunately, although many, many people have given generous donations, we have still only raised two-thirds of our end-of-2015 goal. We REALLY need everyone's help in order to meet the increased need for programs like TAP, CollegeTracks, the College Essay Workshop, and the Summer Academy.
Interview: Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson
The Chevy Chase resident talks about moving the Marriott headquarters, his background and his life here. Every morning, Monday through Friday, roughly 2,500 people come to work at the corporate headquarters of Marriott International on Fernwood Road in Bethesda. They stream across the sprawling, bucolic campus and into the 900,000-square-foot building.
Bethesda Magazine
A Conversation with Emily Yoffe
As the writer of "Dear Prudence," Slate's advice column, Emily Yoffe considers the problems of hundreds of people every week. She talks about her most memorable letters, her biggest gaffe and more. EMILY YOFFE HAS HEARD it all. As the writer of the “Dear Prudence” advice column for the online magazine Slate, Yoffe spends a lot of her time considering the problems—big and small, run-of-the-mill and, well, kinky—of hundreds of people every week.
Bethesda Magazine
Back to School Night Takes Toll on Area Parents
More than 600 parents found themselves lost and “feeling queasy” at Maxwell Dunkin High School’s Back to School Night on Wednesday, according to PTA president Cheryl Kutzling. The 46-year-old mom of three said: “Given our previous Back to School Night experiences, when dozens of parents had to have oxygen administered, we weren’t surprised by this year’s chaos.
Shopping with Your Daughter
As you drive up Old Georgetown Road, the only sounds you hear are the caterwaul of Hot 99.5 and the clatter of your daughter’s fingers while texting. You absentmindedly start humming along to Nicki Minaj. Your daughter freezes, looks up in horror, and then reaches over and changes the station. She goes back to texting.
Bethesda Magazine
Prom Survival Guide
For parents worried about prom safety, here are a few tips to get you through the night. The excitement. The angst. The drama. The preparation. The parental stress levels. Yes, I’m describing a high school rite of passage — but, no, it’s not the college admissions process, the driver’s test, or the graduation ceremony.
Graduation
My twins will graduate from elementary school tomorrow. They are clearly teetering on the brink of the transition, attracted by what lies ahead as well feeling pulled by the past. It is exciting to get older, but at the same time it is not easy to leave behind the security of their school and the childhood that passed within it.
Bethesda Magazine
Parenting in the Dark
My son is quite a conversationalist. Unfortunately, this has a tendency to manifest itself at night. He does his best work between the hours of 2-4 a.m. Take for instance, last night. I sensed a presence and opened one eye enough to see a small figure standing by the bed. It opened its mouth and spoke.
Bethesda Magazine
Art icon Louise Bourgeois left a legacy inspired by childhood
When my children were little, one of their favorite places to visit on the Mall (besides the carousel) was the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. Not only could they run around and make all the noise they wanted, the fanciful works of art in the garden captured their imaginations. One of the most striking pieces, “Spider,” was by the French-born American artist Louise Bourgeois, who died Memorial Day in New York City at the age of 98.
examiner.com
Footloose and Fancy-Free
SUSAN AND RICK JOHNSON had lived in the Washington, D.C., area for 40 years, 25 of them in Bethesda, where they raised two daughters. “We were pretty well settled in, and gliding toward our retirement years,” Rick, 62, says. “We imagined ourselves staying in our home.”. a lot—when a colleague of Rick’s accepted a position at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, a fishing village on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, in 2009.
Bethesda Magazine
Five best bets for Kids DC Restaurant Week
Kids' Restaurant Week is under way, and there's no reason not to take advantage of it. Several D.C. restaurants are catering to kids this week with special menus during lunch and early dinner seatings. Kids 11 and under pay their age, with the purchase of an adult entree. Produced by Destination DC, the official convention and tourism corporation for Washington, the event is designed to promote healthful eating, culinary exposure, and family togetherness.
examiner.com
Oppressed by Motherhood?
American moms have been under siege – at least in the book world – with a lot of incoming international missile fire. After reading about the superior mothering done in other cultures, I’d concluded that the Tiger Mom has nothing on the French moms. Tiger Mom had anger issues and wore herself out getting her kids into Carnegie Hall and Yale.
Bethesda Magazine
The Packaging of a Literary Persona
The world’s only negative review of The Secret History by twenty-something superstar Donna Tartt, Knopf, 524 pages. I’m Nobody! / Who are you? too? / Then there’s a pair of us? they’d advertise—you know! / How dreary to be Somebody / How public, like a Frog / To tell one’s name— / the livelong June / to an admiring Bog!

About

Maura Mahoney

Writing and editing

Reporting

Research

After receiving a master's degree in English literature from the College of William and Mary, I began my publishing career as an editorial researcher at Reader's Digest. I became an associate editor at the magazine before relocating in the mid-1990s to Washington, D.C.
While working as an editor on the copy desk at Congressional Quarterly for four years, I freelanced as a writer and editor for The Baffler. My essays were included in an anthology called Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from the Baffler, which was published in by W.W. Norton & Company in 1997, and I participated in the book tour.
I became a freelance editor/writer in 2005. I have edited books for Colonial Williamsburg Publications and written for internet publications, including D.C. Examiner, Chevy Chase Patch, Grown and Flown, and In the Powder Room.
I began writing a weekly humor blog for Bethesda Magazine, a regional magazine in the D.C. metro area in 2011, and then wrote features and news items for them. I started as an editor and writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2016 in the Chronicle Intelligence division, working on a variety of editorial projects to help campus leaders understand and solve campus problems.