Mary Annaïse Heglar: Dreaming of Shared Joy

Dreaming in Color

Welcome to Dreaming in Color, a show hosted by Darren Isom, a partner with The Bridgespan Group, that provides a space for social change leaders of color to reflect on how their life experiences, personal and professional, have prepared them to lead and drive the impact we all seek.

In this episode, we welcome Mary Annaïse Heglar, a Writer and Climate Activist whose work focuses on climate change and the ways it intersects with race and emotion. Her work has been published in New York Magazine, The Nation, Vox, Wired and other outlets, as well as in several anthologies. Known as “The Godmother of Green Trolling,” Mary uses social media to clap back at fossil fuel companies and call out their empty environmental gestures and tone-deaf greenwashing. She's also an adjunct professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, and the author of a forthcoming children's book, This World is Yours to Cherish, coming out in Spring of 2024. She's the co-creator of the now retired Hot Take podcast and newsletter.

Join this conversation as Mary shares how the beauty of the south has inspired her writing and activism. She talks about burnout and finding joy when it feels like being eaten alive by the world's grandest problems, white supremacy as the root cause of climate change, and the lessons learned from her work in this never-ending fight.

Jump Straight Into

(0:28) Introduction of Mary Annaïse Heglar: Writer, Climate Activist and Daughter of the South.

(1:33) Mary shares inspiration from Maya Angelou: “tell the truth to yourself first, and then to the children.

(11:37) Mary describes her approach to writing, in particular, writing about climate change.

(15:51) Taking the world on your shoulders: how to combat burnout when fighting daunting challenges.

(20:25) The key to finding joy and optimism when it feels like you’re being eaten alive.

(22:33) How do lessons from the fight for freedom relate to the fight for climate change?

(25:02) White Supremacy is a problem for the Climate Change Movement too.

Episode Resources

• Read Mary’s climate essays on Medium
• Keep up with Mary on Twitter
• Check out Mary’s articles What Happened When I Tried to Carry the World on My Back and Climate Change Isn’t the First Existential Threat
• Listen to Mary’s HotTake podcast on Spotify and read more about it here
• Learn more about Jacqui Patterson’s Chisholm Legacy Project, which supports climate-justice leadership from Black communities
• Explore the lives and works of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou
• Discover New Orleans’ Treme Sidewalk Steppers