The Women Who Became Writing Partners After 50 Years of Friendship

Nancy Markey and Kay Adams on how they teamed up in their 60s to pursue a shared lifelong dream.

Quick — who’s your oldest friend? How many years have you known each other? Nancy Markey and Kay Adams probably have you beat. And by a few decades. For 52 and ½ years, their friendship has stayed strong, from grade school in Arkansas, through to high school and college, and then while living far apart. And now, they’re writing partners. After successful careers — Nancy as a flight attendant and later an attorney; Kay as an executive in the banking industry — the two friends have teamed up to tell a series of forgotten stories about Gilded Age Newport, Rhode Island, including a novel in progress and their recent hit Narratively story, A Gilded Age Tale of Murder and Madness.

We sat down with Nancy and Kay to ask them the secret of lifelong friendship, what it’s like to write together, and how to turn history into creative nonfiction.