Thank you to everyone who joined us at Words that Change the World at Ocean Gateway on Thursday, May 16th!
This first of its kind event featured world-changing wordsmiths and storytellers:
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Chartreuse Money (She/they) has been performing their whole life, and doing drag since 2018. A “self-proclaimed drag queen” according to News 8 WMTW, Chartreuse has worked and performed at RuPaul’s Drag Con NYC, performed alongside Miz Cracker (RuPauls Drag Race Season 10 and All Stars 5), Mateo Lane (Netflix, HBO, Comedy Central) and even secured her own comedy drag show at Stand Up! NY, though the show never happened due to Covid-19.
Chartreuse was named Best Drag Personality 2023 for the Best of Portland Awards, working closely with organizations like Equality Maine, Portland Ovations and more. She is known for her work with children, most recently through Portland Ovations Drag Story Hour program, and her involvement with EQME’s New Leaders Project from 2021 to 2022. Chartreuse currently is the producer and host of Batson River Drag Brunch in Portland, Drag Disco Dinner series at Sur Lie in Portland, and hosts weekly and bi weekly events at Blackstones (CHAR-AOKE: Werkly Karaoke) and Cocktail Mary (Therapy Thursday). Chartreuse is a proud member of Curbside Queens.
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Ian-Khara Ellasante (they/them) is a Black, queer, gender-infinite parent, poet, and cultural studies scholar. Ian-Khara’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, Pipe Wrench, The Feminist Wire, Nat. Brut, Hinchas de Poesía, The Volta, Writing the Land: Maine, From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Writers Write the Northeast, and RHINO. Ian-Khara is a Cave Canem fellow and recipient of the New Millennium Award for Poetry. Their critical writing, including the essay “Dear Trans Studies, Can You Do Love?,” has appeared in Transgender Studies Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Families in Society. Proudly hailing from Memphis, Ian-Khara has also loved living and writing in Tucson, Brooklyn, and now southern Maine, where they teach Gender and Sexuality Studies and Africana at Bates College.
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Callie Ferguson is an enterprise and investigative reporter for the Bangor Daily News, where she primarily covers criminal justice stories. She was a 2022 Livingston Award finalist for her coverage of a young man's plight in solitary confinement, and in 2023, joined the inaugural class of The New York Times' Local Investigations Fellowship, where she spent a year examining Maine's juvenile justice system. Callie has lived her entire life in New England and more than a decade in Maine.
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Cameron Jury (she/her) is a current Telling Room Ambassador and spent many years as a TR student partaking in programs such as the Young Emerging Authors Fellowship and Publishing Workshop. From Scarborough, Maine, she attended Gettysburg College where she studied Global Studies and Women and Gender Studies, graduating in 2023. She now works as the Marketing Assistant for Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, continuing her love of fostering creativity advocating for the importance of the arts for young people. She spends her free time trying out as many coffee shops as possible in Portland and Somerville, MA, where she currently lives.
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Leigh Ellis (they/he) is a Maine Literary Award winner, author of Bach in the Barn, and recipient of The Telling Room's 2022 Founders Prize. The Telling Room-produced film adaptation of their award-winning poem "Squid Season" has been an official selection for film festivals across the country. Leigh will be a junior at Columbia College in the fall studying Creative Writing and Education, and is overjoyed to be spending their upcoming summer days teaching at The Telling Room. Leigh is incredibly excited to share his love of writing with others and learn along the way. When not writing, Leigh enjoys rollerblading, making art, playing with cats, and going for walks around the city.
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Mo Drammeh is a rising sophomore at the University of Maine, a major in Ecology & Environmental Science with a concentration in Earth and Climate Sciences and a minor in English, and a member of the Honors College. They were among Maine Magazine's Mainers of The Year in 2022 for their writing, was the winner of the 2022 Crime Flash Competition, was a 2023 Macklin Fellow, and is a 2024 Maine Lit Fest Fellow, as well as being a Maine Top Scholar due to research they presented at Maine State Science Fair in 2023. They enjoy writing, reading, and have recently taken up crochet in their free time.
Ticket sales supported The Telling Room's writing and publishing programs, which empower youth through writing and share their voices with the world. Through this event, The Telling Room was also excited to support our partner in programming, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, which works to enrich the literary life and culture of Maine.
Our 2024 Words that Change the World
Host Committee
Samaa Abdurraqib
Kyo Bannai
Aimée & Mark Bessire
Peyton Black
Iris Blasi
Valerie Brock
Tyler Clements & Lily King
Coelle Travel - Khadija El Barkaoui
Susan Conley & Tony Kieffer
Joe Conway & Jenny Dougherty
Sara Corbett & Mike Paterniti
Sara Crisp & Gregg Lipton
Christina & Simon DeYoung
Patty Dodd
Susanne Dunlap
Kerem Durdag
Shari Elder
Taffy Field
Sean T. Findlen & Amy Tessendorf
Catherine Fisher
Tanuja Desai Hidier & Bernard Hidier
Patty Howells
Betsy & Chris Hunt
Spencer & Emily Jones
Celine Kuhn
Sarah & Henry Laurence
Libby & Michael Lauze
Mary Allen Lindemann & James Hoban
Giovanna Gray Lockhart
Fran Mardjetko
Molly McGrath
Mechanics' Hall
Charles Miller
Jennifer Moore & Craig Oldershaw
Matty Oates
Catherine Richards Olney
Pranita Panda
Christopher N. & Cheryl A. Powell
William M. S. Powell
Willy Ritch
Erica Schair-Cardona & Ivan Cardona
Tim Schneider & Morgan Lake Adams
Laura Shen
Donna Simonetti & Family
Peg Smith
Debra Spark
Alice & Dick Spencer
The Form Lab
The Poets Corner - Meg Weston
The Stevens Family
Kristin Kellogg Valdmanis
Debbie Weil and Sam Harrington
Sandra & David Whiston
John Williams
Maya Williams
Carol & Joe Wishcamper
Bob Zager
Anonymous
Thank You to Our Corporate Sponsors
Paragraph Sponsors
Stanza Sponsors
Sentence Sponsors
Word Sponsors
Special Thanks
The Telling Room’s 2023 - 2024 Events Committee
Tanuja Desai Hidier, Board President
Rylan Hynes, Staff
Khalil Kilani, Alumnus
Meredith McCarroll, Community Member
Sally Newhall, Board Member
Matty Oates, Community Member
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Sarah Schneider, Staff
Stacey Ventimiglia, Staff
Debbie Weil, Community Member