The Mighty Writers Podcast... with Maureen Boland

In Philadelphia, one figure who needs absolutely no introduction is the Phillie Phanatic, the team mascot who is as iconic in these parts as Dr. J, Ben Franklin, or Rocky Balboa.

Beyond being a key fixture of Phillies' home games, the Phanatic shows up at playgrounds, schools, hospitals and all kinds of special events with one purpose: to bring happiness — especially to kids.

In this episode, I speak with Dav...

Philadelphia is awash in grieving children and families. But it’s not all bad news, because where there are serious problems, there are humans at work on serious solutions.

In my years as a classroom teacher, I saw many organizations try to help students with problems like grief. Rarely did I see an immediate impact — that is, until I observed the work of Uplift, formerly known as The Center for Grieving Children.

I’ve been obsessed with coming-of-age stories since I first read “A Catcher in the Rye” when I was in seventh grade. That obsession is probably what made me feel entirely at home when I became a ninth grade English teacher. There is very little that moves me more than hearing people grapple in language with themselves and society during that short but profound moment that occurs somewhere between the ages of 13 and 16. 

In...

I often say that my favorite thing about being a classroom writing teacher was my access to stories. It was enriching to me as a teacher and as a human being to learn about my students' lives through their stories. And I learned a lot about issues in society by hearing the same kind of stories over and over again. 

One issue that came through to me via my students’ stories is the challenge people face when their citizenship — o...

My close friend and colleague Liz Wesley knows what it’s like to fight for fairness in a profoundly unfair world. She battled her way through the education system as a child only to find herself up against some of the same forces of inequity as a teacher in Philadelphia's highly segregated public school system. 

Always a social justice warrior, Liz became even more involved in trying to fight racial segregation in education in ...

LuQman Abdullah caught my attention when I read his commentaries on gun violence in the Philadelphia Citizen.

He emphasized something that had become evident to me through my work as a classroom teacher: Young people are not being heard.

Now maybe that’s always been the case. Maybe American adults have perennially dismissed the voices of children. But what LuQman says is that given the prevalence of guns and desp...

I am an obsessive people-watcher. Which is one of the reasons working in a school never-got old for me. Schools are full of people and stories. 

When I started the podcast, I thought about other workplaces that allow for good people-watching, and public transportation came to mind. Bus drivers, train conductors, transit workers — they all see an incredible cross section of the city’s population every day. My grandfather, Charlie Gib...

Here's a taste for what's in store for our second season! Season 2 officially launches on December 14th. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Season 2 of the Mighty Writers Podcast with Maureen Boland will have 9 biweekly episodes (our first episode with Eagles legend Malcolm Jenkins came out a little early), focused on good people doing good work in and around a big American cit...

We kick off the second season of the Mighty Writers Podcast with a conversation with former NFL safety and two-time Super Bowl champ Malcolm Jenkins who recently published a revealing and introspective memoir, “What Winners Won’t Tell You: Lessons from a Legendary Defender.”

In addition to his achievements on the field, Jenkins is admired for the work he did with Anquan Boldin and other NFL players to form the Players Coalition, whi...

On paper, Maureen Boland and Pat Cooper might seem like unlikely friends. They come from very different backgrounds and have had totally disparate life experiences. Maureen was Pat’s high school teacher years ago. But as deeply curious people, interested in complex matters of the heart and mind, they’ve found many threads of connection between them.

In our final episode of this season, Pat talks to Maureen about growing up...

The U.S. is facing an unprecedented youth crisis: 1 in 10 young adults is dealing with some form of homelessness each year, and the numbers of them struggling with mental health issues has increased dramatically. When host Maureen Boland was a high school teacher, it was not unusual for her to discover that one of her students was homeless. The clues were subtle: Maybe they’d just be carrying extra bags, or arrive later than usual....

In this episode, we speak with award-winning Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas about her career path, themes in her writing, the challenges of being a woman of color in journalism, and why she created The Ñ Fund, a scholarship fund for Latinas who want to pursue a career in journalism. We’ll also speak with young Idaho journalist Mariela Esquivel Rodriguez, the first recipient of the The Ñ Fund for Latinas in Journalism ...

Kennett Square, PA, aka the Mushroom Capital of the World, is about an hour south of Philadelphia. Fully half of the U.S. gets its mushrooms from Kennett Square, and the majority of people who make that happen, often in substandard working and living conditions, are migrant farmworkers from Mexico, Central America and Venezuela.

Today we speak with friends Anita Davidson and Nelson Alberto Contreras Gelves, who both work a...

Kirkus called Jane Wong’s debut memoir about her childhood in Atlantic City “a generous, steaming stew of a book loaded with personality and originality and sprinkled with the fiery chili of rage.” In this episode we talk to Wong about structuring a memoir, writing about family, marginalized history and generational healing.

The Mighty Writers Podcast with Maureen Boland is produced by Mighty Writers in partnership with Ro...

In January, Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos adapted her popular “Science of Well-Being” course for teen audiences. That curriculum was picked up by Philadelphia high school teacher Kate Reber, who offered the online course in the hopes that it would help her students — many of whom have been struggling with anxiety and depression — navigate their lives.
 
In this episode, we begin by talking to Kate about being on t...

“A brilliant and fucking fearless debut.” That’s what acclaimed author Carmen Maria Machado said about “Sink” by Joseph Earl Thomas — and that was just the beginning of the raves, from Kiese Laymon to the New York Times. In this episode, we speak with Thomas about his brutal and wrenching memoir, and what it means to thrive when you’re living a life so focused on survival. 

Warning: This episode contains subject matter and language ...

In 2021, mother, writer and yoga instructor Linda Geraghty was featured in the stirring and critically acclaimed documentary Our American Family. The project, which was filmed over the course of a year inside Linda’s family home in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, documents the family experience as Nicole, Linda’s adult daughter, begins a journey of recovery from heroin addiction. 

For Linda, writing was the lifeline that helped her make sens...

Thirty-year-old Akeiba Emerson shares her journey from foster care to adoption. Like too many children, Akeiba experienced abuse and neglect as she moved through 22 different foster care placements before she was old enough to read. But, thanks to a chance encounter with Judy Emerson, a remarkable single mother who was looking to grow her family, Akeiba went on to enjoy the best of what a good family life has to offer. Their voices...