Her short story "Seed Money" won the 2002 Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open[4] and "Pluff Mud" won the 2004 Colossal Short Story Contest,[5] sponsored by the Columbia (South Carolina) Free Times.

[8] Surface Tension was also the winner of the Imaginative Writing Award (Betty Gabehart Fiction Prize) from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference in March 2005.

McMahan was awarded the distinction of Literary Artist of the Year (2013) by Jasper Magazine, an arts publication in South Carolina.

McMahan's novella Decorations was included in the collection Snow Angels which was a Book of the Month Club selection and appeared in the New York Times, USA Today.

[8] Her novel Calling Home was selected as "Need to Read" by Target Corporation,[9] and The Ocean Inside was nominated for book of the year by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association.