All core programs are 100% free to students and their families, ensuring that the students who need our services most – the students who are least likely to have a voice in the community – can participate. Through skilled, creative, and resourceful program delivery, we minimize overhead and maximize impact.
We offer free, afterschool and weekend writing and arts Workshops on any wild, writing-related theme we can conjure.
We host community WordPLAY afternoons that pair local artists and writers with youth to help them create and tell their stories in a variety of media.
We teach an annual nine-month-long writing and leadership program for refugee and immigrant youth called Young Writers and Leaders.
We run literary Field Trips for local language arts classes that bring students to our Old Port writing studio for a morning.
We visit schools to teach multi-week Residencies in which Telling Room writing teachers and community volunteers work in a local classroom to publish an original chapbook.
Each year, our programs are linked by a new theme, and the best student writing from the year is published in a major annual Anthology released every spring at a community event attended by hundreds of supporters.
Our Super Famous Writers Series brings top-notch poets, fiction writers, and journalists to Maine to give round-table craft talks to young writers, as well as public readings for the community at large.
During the summer months, we offer a variety of Summer Camps for writers of all ages and interests.
We also invite students looking to take a leadership role in our organization to join the Youth Advisory Board, a group of high schoolers who meet monthly to share work and help us shape our programs.
Adults are invited to join the fun in our quarterly Night Owl workshops that brings nationally known writers to our studio to teach master classes.