Rosie McMahan was brought up in Somerville, MA, at a time when kids and dogs roamed the streets in unlawful packs and the walk to a barroom or Catholic church was less than a quarter of a mile in any direction. She and her husband moved to western Massachusetts in 2001 to raise their children.

Rosie’s writing has received prizes and she can be seen reading in local venues, including Pecha Kucha (a local storytelling event), the annual Garlic & Arts Festival, and the Greenfield Annual Word Festival (GAWF). She has also been published in several journals, including Silkworm, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, the 2017 Gallery of Readers Anthology, and Passager Journal. She currently lives in Amherst, MA.

Rosie’s sins were never difficult to recall; they lined themselves up like baby ducks in her mind’s eye. Her confession to Father Hart one day in 1974 went like this: “I didn’t finish all my chores. I stole the Halloween candy my mom hid in the pantry. And I let my Daddy touch my private places.”

Though it begins as an all-too-common story of childhood sexual abuse, Fortunate Daughter gradually becomes a rare story of how one person heals from that early trauma. In this intimate first-person narrative, Rosie McMahan offers the reader a portrait of misery, abuse, and hurt, followed by the difficult and painful task of healing—a journey that, in the end, reveals the complicated and nuanced venture of true reconciliation and the freedom that comes along with it.