She writes features, essays, and reviews for People, More, Good Housekeeping, Salon.com, The Chicago Tribune,[1] The Los Angeles Times[2] the San Francisco Chronicle,[3] and the Boston Globe.

After a brief stint in Silicon Valley, she became Editor of the Banana Republic Magalog, then created award-winning socially responsible marketing campaigns for Ben & Jerry's, Working Assets, Stonyfield Farm, Smith & Hawken, and Odwalla.

[5] Her first novel, A Theory of Small Earthquakes, was praised by Anne Lamott as "A smart, sexy, funny, wrenching, delicious story of lust and trust and love and family.

Maran's book Class Dismissed, published by St. Martin's Press in 2000, presents an account of the realities of public education via a year in the lives of three high-school seniors from Berkeley High.

[9]My Lie, published in 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, is a memoir that recounts the fallout from Maran's false accusation that her father sexually abused her as a child.

Throughout the memoir, Maran touches on themes such as false memory, the sex-abuse panic spread across the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s, and coming to terms with taking responsibility for her actions.

I urge anyone interested in late 20th century culture, gender conflicts, social influence, and human suggestibility to read My Lie.

In the book, twenty of America's bestselling authors, including David Baldacci, Jennifer Egan, Terry McMillan, Jodi Picoult, and James Frey, share tricks, tips, and secrets of the successful writing life.

In the Washington Post, Elinor Lipman wrote, "Well-written and smart...It is lovely to see Los Angeles through the author's eyes...Her friends are bricks, her boundaries are porous, and her heart is big.