Akila McConnell

Writer

At age five, Akila McConnell announced that she wanted to be a writer. As a teenager, she changed that aspiration to lawyer because she wanted to write and not starve. After graduating from high school in Auburn, Alabama, she received a double major from Emory University in Accounting and Philosophy, which combination confuses most people but makes complete sense to Akila’s mixed-up mind. She went on to get a law degree from Duke University and then spent four years working as a toxic tort attorney at a big law firm in Atlanta, Georgia, and a year clerking for a federal judge. Then, she turned 30 and, to the surprise of everyone who knew her, quit her job and set off on a round-the-world culinary adventure with her much-enduring husband and two dogs. Along the way, she discovered that taking one leap into the unexpected makes it much easier to take the next leap. Now, she writes and hopes not to starve.