Mary Adkins is the author of the novels When You Read This (Indie Next Pick, “Best Book of 2019” by Good Housekeeping and Real Simple), Privilege (Today.com “Best Summer Read”), and Palm Beach (New York Post “Best Book of 2021”). Her books have been published in 13 countries, and her essays and reporting have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and more. A graduate of Yale Law School and Duke University, she teaches storytelling for The Moth worldwide and supports aspiring authors as an online writing coach through her program, The Book Incubator.

Among other things, Mary and Carter discuss Mary’s transition from corporate law to becoming an author, their experiences both being a student in and teaching writing classes, and about how time is not the problem when deciding to start writing. At the end of their conversation, they make up an engrossing story using a line from Emilly Littlejohn’s Lost Lake.