Hello!

My name is Holly Branco. I am a writer, educator, and nonprofit administrator. I grew up in northern New Jersey doing as much theatre and music as I could.

In May of 2025, I graduated magna cum laude from Boston College with a B.A. in English (creative writing concentration) and philosophy. I spent my junior year studying abroad at the University of Oxford through Mansfield College’s full-year Visiting Student Programme.

At BC, I got involved in just about everything: a cappella, arts news reporting, concert photography, ethics discussion groups, and even NASA-funded astronomy research. Two groups, however, became my home: Model United Nations, for which I was Vice President, and The Stylus, where I served as Senior Editor and Retreat Director.

Outside of university, I have been a Philosophy Teaching Assistant at Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Researcher at the Oxford Future Impact Group, and Content Writer at Magnetic Magazine. My publication credits include celebrity interviews, news articles, concert reviews, an astronomy poster and journal article, and almost two dozen poems.

I live in New Jersey with my lovely parents, brother, and dog. You can find me leading writing workshops, tutoring college applicants, freelancing in photography, running operations for the New Jersey Shade Tree Federation, and researching election information for Fair Fight Action.

Some things I’ve enjoyed lately:

Words:

  • Letters from an American (Heather Cox Richardson)

  • Empire of AI (Karen Hao)

  • The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

  • “The Case Against Perfection” (Michael J. Sandel)

  • Look (Solmaz Sharif)

  • A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)

  • “Johnston Atoll: Then and Now” (CAST)

  • “AI Arms and Influence” (Kenneth Payne)

  • Antiqua et Nova (Vatican)

Video/audio:

  • Dear Hank and John (John and Hank Green)

  • Madonna (Madonna)

  • The Great Divide (Noah Kahan)

  • i’m not joking (Bleachers)

  • Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

  • The Social Network (David Fincher)

  • My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki)

  • Lectures hosted by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

  • Jury Duty (Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupnitsky)