Sharon Mahoney, Writer
I originally hail from Somerville, Massachusetts, a community of over 77,000 residents in a roughly four square mile area. After moving from there to Worcester almost three decades ago, I now live in Brookfield, Massachusetts, a small town of about 3300 residents. To call it a “change of lifestyle” is an understatement!
I have a colorful work record, with a background in theater performance and technical production, concert production and promotion, and nonprofit management. Over time I’ve also worked in an independent bookstore, a furniture-making business, a hospital blood bank, a multinational corporation in Boston’s Financial District, as a political campaign volunteer coordinator for several local candidates, and as a temp worker in more lousy jobs than I want to go into here. It was great preparation for journalism, and I can pretty much strike up a conversation with anyone, which makes me valuable company at dull parties.
After a 30 year hiatus I returned to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst as a full-time journalism major, where I wrote for the UMass Daily Collegian and various other campus publications, and served on the staff of student radio station WMUA.
While at the University I also trained as a news intern at National Public Radio affiliate WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts (now known as “New England Public Radio”), where I learned about sound-gathering, newswriting for broadcast, and digital audio editing.
My first staff reporter’s job after UMass was with the Spencer New Leader, a community weekly which covered my home community of Brookfield as well as the other five towns in their readership (West Brookfield, East Brookfield, North Brookfield, Spencer and Leicester), and where this urban transplant developed an appreciation of not only the charms and challenges of rural life, but a deep affection for the people who live and work here and the wonderful stories they have to tell.
When it comes to writing, I’ve done a little bit of everything–from corporate and nonprofit writing, pamphleteering, program notes, speechwriting, essays, magazine stories, to public relations and publicity work. I’ve also written freelance news and feature stories for a fair number of publications including the Somerville Journal, the Daily Hampshire Gazette’s weekly arts and entertainment magazine the Amherst Bulletin, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
I currently don’t write professionally, although I came close to accepting a recent correspondent’s post covering meetings in a nearby town for a local weekly. But I wanted the freedom to write what I wanted when I wanted to write it, without the constraints of a formal journalism job. And given my involvement in local affairs (see below) I wouldn’t have been free to write about issues in my adopted hometown.
I’m also an elected member and Chair of Brookfield’s Planning Board and a volunteer for Brookfield Community Media, the town’s Public Access station, where I spend an average of three nights a month behind a camcorder, taping local meetings and events for Channel 194.
My most current project is helping to build and operate an FCC-licensed Low-Power FM broadcast radio station for Brookfield called Apple Country Radio (WACF-LP, 98.1 on your FM dial), named after my town’s most famous community event, the Apple Country Fair.
In my spare time (ha!) I serve as full-time staff to two obstreperous cats.