Mary H.K. Choi On Her New Book and her AuDHD Diagnosis
Forever35
Doree Shafrir & Elise Hu
4.7 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author Mary H.K. Choi is back! They discuss her new novel, Pool House, and why this mother-daughter story had to take place in Los Angeles. They also touch on her foray into hormone replacement therapy, how she dealt with her late diagnoses of AuDHD, and what it’s like in New York as a creative these days.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to February 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Dory Schaeffreier. |
| 0:17.2 | And I'm Elise Hugh, and we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums. |
| 0:22.0 | And today we have a repeat forever 35 guest, one of my favorite people and authors, Mary H.K. Choi, back to talk about her new book, Pool House, which is a great read. And I just, I just love getting to |
| 0:40.8 | talk to Mary. I hope you had fun too. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's her first adult, or it's her first novel. |
| 0:48.5 | She's written a lot of YA and I've read all of her YA books already. and she gets into why she chose to take this on |
| 0:56.9 | instead of the YA genre and how she doesn't really think about genre that much anyway. |
| 1:02.4 | She's just a really strong storyteller. |
| 1:04.9 | Also, Mary H.K. Choi has such a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons, not just because |
| 1:10.6 | she's a brilliant |
| 1:11.2 | writer and thinker and I just like, I feel like her voice is so singular. But she has a special |
| 1:16.8 | place in my heart because, one, she was the neighbor of my college dormmate, which is pretty wild. |
| 1:23.4 | So funny. Tim. So she and Tim, I don't know, were neighbors in New York or something. And then that's how I was first introduced to her very first YA book. He recommended it to me. I think it was emergency contact was her first one. And the other is, because I read and loved emergency contact, I think I was doing a podcast app search for her name because I wanted |
| 1:46.6 | to hear her talk about her book because a lot of times I'll watch a TV show or a movie and I'll |
| 1:51.2 | really enjoy it and then want to go back and listen to the artists who are in that TV show or |
| 1:56.3 | movie or book talk about their work. And so I had searched Mary H.K. Choi's name. And that's how I first |
| 2:04.8 | heard Forever 35. So the first forever 35 episode I ever heard was probably in like 2018 or |
| 2:14.7 | 2019 in the early, I mean, it was in like the first 100 episodes for sure. |
| 2:19.0 | Oh, how fun. Even in the first 50 episodes, I heard you and Kate because y'all had on Mary H.K. |
| 2:26.0 | Choi. And I think at that time, she was just coming out of disordered eating and was like very |
| 2:31.1 | candid about all of that with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 2:40.0 | I just thought it was so real and I loved her, but also I loved you guys and your rapport. |
| 2:41.5 | And like, it's so funny. |
... |
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