About

Throughout his adventurous career, Tucker Legerski has focused on giving people good information. He books excellent guests for Wisconsin-based radio and teaches journalism courses at a local college. He has written about the medical history of diabetes, taught in the Gobi desert, reported for public radio, made art in children’s hospitals, and produced podcasts about billion-dollar companies. He builds relationships, makes media, teaches, and creates systems for organizations.

His weekly newsletter Bored & Crooked is for those who love the arts and think about their health. Bored & Crooked explores the intersection of health and culture. Every week, Tucker provides ideas to break the boredom and to share resources for those who are sick, challenged, and struggling with their health, and for those who are caring taking.

Here are some recent highlights in his media and education positions:

  • Produced over 100 episodes (and counting) for a daily Wisconsin-based news and talk shows for Civic Media and WORT 89.9 FM.
  • Have taught 6 college-level courses in writing and multi-media journalism.
  • Booked dozens of guests for media and the classroom that include Pulitzer Prize winners, award-winning investigative reporters, best-selling authors, world-renowned speakers, and State Senators.
  • Produced over 90 premium podcasts episodes across 5 different podcasts for the media company WaitWhat.
  • Created fact-checking guidelines, AI-tool guides, and provided audience development support in newsletters and social channels.
  • Reported and assisted with over 200 news stories for Alabama Public Radio.
  • 2 awards at The University of Alabama in graduate school for my research skills.

Tucker’s soon-to-launch self-produced and independent podcast Book Stuff, will explore how literature helps us navigate our lives and world. It’s a pod for writers and readers, and those who are reading curious. In a so-called post-literate world, Tucker celebrates, advocates for, and talks about the still-existing power — and fun — of the written word in literature and beyond. Lacking parents or a mentor in much of his life, he has always turned to books and writing as great navigators. Libraries and information have always felt like a source of power to him. 

Throughout much of his writing career, Tucker has focused on making media and writing that is about health and technology. Tucker is actively seeking freelancing opportunities in audio and text-based formats. He is also working on a novel about a teenager obsessed with finding a new pancreas for his mother.

Tucker lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife and daughter.

Farther back in my career:

Before going back to before graduate school in 2018, I spent three years working for the non-profit The Hole in Wall Gang Camp. There, I worked in children’s hospitals across New York City and New Jersey where I delivered specialized programming to seriously-ill children.

Before that, I spent three years volunteering for the US Government. I served in the Peace Corps in Mongolia and AmeriCorps in Portland, OR. I went to Colorado State (Go Rams!) for my undergraduate degree in English. I also spent a delightful Semester At Sea where I got to circumnavigate around the world.

My quick highlights from these jobs:

  • Engaged and interacted with over 2,000 patients during bedside visits, outpatient clinics, playrooms, and other hospital environments
  • Organized several initiatives within hospitals and supporting organizations, including a teen group at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital for building community around long term illness.
  • Built human capacity skills for eight Mongolian English teachers at a secondary school.
  • Started a program for disabled youth in Sainshand, Mongolia.
  • Premiered a special scholarship for Portland youth to attend community college for free.

Personal Life

I was born disabled with clubbed feet and scoliosis. Growing up across the Rocky Mountain West — Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado — I needed lots of surgeries and occupational therapy, but luckily I hit the lottery with moms: she was an occupational therapist by trade. She constantly worked with me, walking right behind me with braces on my legs, holding my tiny body as I pushed a Tonka Truck, many months past the age when most children walk on their own.

Eventually, I took those steps and have been walking ever since. In many ways, I owe my ability to walk — and my drive to explore — to her. “Don’t be narrow and pointy,” she always told me. Be curious for discoveries and open to possibilities.

My parents divorced when I was young. We lived near a river in a 300-hundred person town in Wyoming. Along with my younger sister, Mom packed up our things into a horse trailer and moved to Salt Lake City. Later, after a kidney transplant, due to complications of her type 1 diabetes, she moved us again back to her hometown in Colorado. Over the next decade, Mom’s health declined. She died when I was 22, she was 49.

After college, I bounced around the world and the US and did service-oriented work. Eventually I found myself going to graduate school at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) on a paid-for Masters degree. I wrote an unpublished manuscript about the history and culture of diabetes while weaving in my own health journey with my mother’s health journey. I also dabbled in journalism and worked part-time at Alabama Public Radio.

In Alabama my life changed in the most wonderful way: I met my spectacular spouse and wife, Megan. We got married, and later had a our first child, which proved to be harder than anticipated. The state of Alabama almost took away our needed ability to use IVF. (See the story HERE).

In early 2025, we moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where we happily live. I run on coffee and sunshine. A bicycle ride helps, too.