"Hug your hairdresser next time you see them," she said.
In the much-lauded Educating Rita starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine, Rita is a hairdresser who goes to university and discovers a passion for education which helps Caine, a disgruntled professor, find renewed joy in his job.
Not long after the 1983 film came out, Adam was a 14-year-old Selwyn College student working part-time at a Remuera hairdressing salon. When school started going "not so well", she accepted an apprenticeship and spent the next 15 years — off and on — working as a hairdresser while studying.
Secrets, confessions and shocking admissions shared by clients haven't been used in any of her three books (one short story collection, two novels) but the profession had a definite influence on her writing.
"I wasn't a very chatty hairdresser," she says.
"I was very quiet, which maybe made me not perfect for a hairdressing job but when you have your hands on people and you're serving them and you're listening to how they see themselves and how they want to see themselves. I think it gave me this incredible compassion and understanding for people.
"It's very hard to make judgments about others when you're allowed that degree of intimacy with them and I think that, more perhaps than the individual stories, it was just such a good education for writing because you're allowed to be with people at a level you don't get in a lot of other situations."
She recalls the days when hairdryers were much louder so hairdressers just nodded in response to client conversation. That way she unwittingly ended up agreeing to go to a Scientology Dianetics talk.
"But I think I got out of it, because I can't remember going."
Through hairdressing, Adam developed an ear for dialogue and possibly an appreciation of the human condition, but says she isn't a poetic writer and suspects that may annoy some.
Although she won the Acorn prize, The New Animals didn't get a lot of love from some critics. But dedicated admirers including those Ockham judges said it was a confrontational, revelatory novel that held up a mirror up to contemporary New Zealand culture.
Adam accepts the harsh reviews with grace but admits sometimes it has been hard to stay the course.
"I can only go back to one of the first writing workshops I was in and one of the people in the workshop said, 'Why would you write about that?' and I think that's echoed throughout my writing. Why write about that instead of this?
"Also I'm often not the most poetic writer. I think I value documentary writing rather than poetic writing and I think maybe that can be frustrating for people."
At school, Adam, now 47, toyed with the idea of being a writer but didn't really understand what it meant. At 21, she returned to studying, picked up English Literature at the University of Auckland and became interested in poetry.
It was the first of several courses she did leading to a number of professions but writing remained on her mind. Completing a Masters in Library and Information Studies at Victoria University, Adam was then — third-time lucky — accepted for the university's renowned Institute of Modern Letters.
That was 2007, a year after she and husband Brent McIntyre had child Tallulah. Adam now holds a PhD in creative writing; she teaches in prisons as well as tertiary institutes, reviews books and, of course, writes her own, aiming to get at least 500 words down every week day.
Although there have been other accolades and awards, the Ockham win was a surprise.
"I was kind of expecting it to be a lesson in how to be a good loser. You know, we talk a lot in our house about how art sometimes has to be done without reward and how sometimes we just need to do our art and not think about what other people think, so it has been an interesting time."
The New Animals parodies Auckland's fashion scene. As a hairdresser, Adam admires those working in fashion and has a keen interest in design and objects, especially those made to be beautiful but simultaneously functional.
"I also find it a really amazing industry. I think New Zealand hits above its weight as far as fashion goes. There's such a dedication for making beautiful things but also trying to keep things locally made."
She sees more class conflict in her book than a generational clash and feels sorry for the younger generation.
"I feel that we are laying an incredible responsibility and burden on the generations that come after us. It's very hard to look at someone in their teens and 20s and say [to them], 'we did this' and expect them to have the answers."
For her, the main thing the prize will buy is time - something she needs given she is working on her next novel, which is "not behaving itself".
"It's quite funny, I remember talking about The New Animals early on and saying that it was a Hare Krishna mermaid book and that was not what it ended up being at all," she said.
"So, I can say a little about the new one. It's set in Invercargill, which is where most of my family is from, and although it's set right now, there are some technological changes to the world that have made it a slightly different place, but it's based around the people I grew up with and hung out with.
"I think it's about 20,000 words in and it's not behaving itself so it could go any way. It might end up being set in Fiji."
