Dirt is a story about the places where we start. From a single-wide trailer in the mountains of rural West Virginia to the halls of Yale Law School, Mary Marantz's story is one of remembering our roots while turning our faces to the sky. From growing up in that trailer, where it rained just as hard inside as out and the smell of mildew hung thick in the air, Mary has known what it is to feel broken and disqualified because of the muddy scars leaving smudged fingerprints across our lives. Generations of her family lived and logged in those hauntingly treacherous woods, risking life and limb just to barely scrape by. And yet that very struggle became the redemption song God used to write a life she never dreamed of.
Mixed with warmth, wit, and the bittersweet, sometimes achingly heartbreaking places we go when we dig in instead of give up, Dirt is a story of healing. With gut-wrenching honesty and hard-won wisdom, Mary shares her story for anyone who has ever walked into the world and felt like their scars were still on display, showing that you are braver, better, and more empathetic for what you have survived. Because God does his best work in the muddy, messy, and broken--if we'll only learn to dig in.
Mary Marantz grew up in a trailer in rural West Virginia. The first of her immediate family to go to college, she went on to earn a master’s degree in moral philosophy and a law degree from Yale. After ditching six-figure-salary law firm offers in London and New York and starting a business with her husband, Justin, together they have built their online education platform for creative entrepreneurs. Mary is a popular writer and speaker whose work has recently been featured by Business Insider, MSN, Bustle, and Brit+Co. And she is also the host of the iTunes Top 200 podcast, The Mary Marantz Show. She lives in an 1880s fixer-upper by the sea in New Haven, Connecticut with Justin and their two very fluffy golden retrievers, Goodspeed & Atticus.