Board of Directors

Joe Conway

Joe Conway was born in Concord, Massachusetts where his passion for literature took root at an early age. An avid reader, his first job was working as a tour guide at the Old Manse—one-time home to both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. He earned a BA in English from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and began a 10+ year career as a freelance writer in San Francisco. While living the Bay Area, he began volunteering at 826 Valencia as a writing tutor and member of the editorial board. After moving to Portland, Maine in 2008, he was thrilled to find The Telling Room and began volunteering as an after school writing coach. In subsequent years he’s been a Young Writers and Leaders writing mentor eight times over, and he served on The Telling Room staff as the organization's first ever dedicated grant writer. He has seen first-hand how even a brief experience at The Telling Room can change a young person's life. Joe lives in South Portland with his wife Jenny and their two young boys and runs his own digital marketing, advertising, and analytics firm, Sonar Digital LLC, located in Portland. 

Sara Crisp

Sara Crisp is an artist who has shown in Maine and New York for years. She paints and makes sculptural books and has mentored students throughout the years. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Cumberland but grew up in Southern New Hampshire. Sara got her masters in Education and taught reading and writing in the Lower School at the Waynflete School in Portland. She has been involved for years with the Siddhartha School Partnership, which supports a small school in Ladakh in northern India. In addition to supporting the school, Sara and her husband have sponsored three students beyond just their Siddhartha School education. She has served both as a board member and president of this organization. She has been a long-time supporter of The Telling Room and believes in its mission and presence in the lives of so many young people. 

Sean Findlen

Sean Findlen leads enterprise communications as the Assistant Vice President for the Unum Group (NYSE: UNM) – an international provider of workplace benefits and services. Reporting to Unum’s chief communications officer, Sean directs a team of strategists focused on company-wide communications planning and implementation. Throughout his career, Sean has served as a political appointee, C-suite leader, and more than a decade as a global PR agency executive. Before joining Unum Group, Sean was vice president for communications & public affairs at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he led the integrated marketing, communications, and public affairs strategy for one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges. Prior to Bates, Sean worked for more than a decade with the global public relations firm, Weber Shandwick. Sean earned a J.D. from Suffolk University and a B.A. in French from Bates. Beyond the office, he volunteers on the non-profit boards of the Great Schools Partnership and Androscoggin Bank’s MainStreet Foundation, mentors young professionals, and provides strategic counsel for local economic development initiatives.

Tanuja Desai Hidier

After a Bombay babyhood and childhood in Massachusetts, Boston-born author/singer-songwriter and Board President Tanuja Desai Hidier moved to NYC and later to London, where the tale of her debut novel’s protagonist, Dimple Lala, grew clear. Born Confused, Tanuja’s pioneering debut, considered to be the first South Asian American YA novel, was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Sequel Bombay Blues received the South Asia Book Award, and Tanuja has made two booktrack albums of original songs based on the novels. She also produced the Deep Blue She #Mutiny2Unity #MeToo WeMix music video/PSA: an award-winning intersectionality project featuring one hundred plus artist/activists, mostly women of color (and many writers). 

Tanuja was recently featured on the New York Film Academy’s 20/20 series. Her prose-poem was included in PEN America’s India At 75 anthology, a historic collection by authors from India/its diaspora reflecting on India’s 75th year of Independence. Other recent nonfiction has appeared in Parents Magazine, Maine Women Magazine, and Amjambo Africa; she also wrote the foreword to Untold: Defining Moments of the Uprooted, a nonfiction anthology featuring more than thirty new Brown womxn writers. Tanuja’s ode to Pippi was included in Scholastic’s 100 Reasons to Love Reading anthology in celebration of their 100-year anniversary. In 2021 Tanuja was a Good Morning America Inspiration List headliner for ABC’s network-wide project for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2021. 

Tanuja now lives in Maine, on Wabanaki land, in a three-generation story-telling-and-loving home, aged from octogenarian grandparents with true lived tales from apartheid Africa and Gandhi-era India, and two teen daughters, one of whom has written her favorite fantasy novel, and the other, her favorite YA novel.

Tanuja believes stories help both reader and writer thrive. By showing us we’re not alone, stories change, honor, create—and save lives. And youth voices are not only worth hearing for the sheer pleasure of it, for the hope they gift: We need to listen. Our youth are both our future story and our now. Our windows, mirrors—and portal. They inherit our world, and bring to it their priceless, vital own. She is thrilled to be on team Telling Room, who understands and embraces all this: is committed to supporting young people on their journeys towards learning to trust and treasure and share their own voices. Knowing their stories matters…and that someone is listening.

Libby Lauze

Board Vice President Libby Lauze is an education management professional with over 18 years of experience in the field of international education. As Director of Partner Services at CEA CAPA Education Abroad she is responsible for preparing young people to pursue academic and cultural exploration in countries around the world.

Previously, Libby managed an organization supporting young international professionals coming to the US for internships and career training.

Libby is passionate about building intercultural competency and providing access to international experiences for young people. She is a graduate of Middlebury College where she earned a B.A. in Russian/East European Studies. Libby resides in Portland, Maine with her husband and two children.

Brita Loppnow

Brita Loppnow is the founder and CEO of Prosper HR. She started her entrepreneurial journey to provide expert boutique Human Resources consulting and fractional HR services to startups and small businesses. Brita is a human capital leader, SHRM certified HR consultant, and a certified career coach. Because she brings 15 years of HR experience from working at startups and for McKinsey & Company, Brita joined the Telling Room HR Committee in the spring of 2024. When she is not researching the next big HR topic, she is managing her real estate/investment properties, paddleboarding on any body of water she can find, catching sunsets at the beach, and spending time with her two dogs. Brita thoroughly enjoys meditative journaling and writing poetry whenever she has a free moment.

Meredith McCarroll

Meredith McCarroll is a writer and educator living in Portland. McCarroll earned her PhD in African-American Literature and Film from University of Tennessee, where she focused on critical race theory and critical whiteness studies. She worked as Director of Writing and Rhetoric at Bowdoin College for eight years before launching Dogwood Writing and Editing. She is author of Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film (2018) and co-editor of Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, which won the American Book Award in 2019. She is a frequent instructor of nonfiction at Maine Writers and Publishers. Her essays and stories have appeared in The Guardian, CNN, New Lines Magazine, Still, Salvation South, and elsewhere. She has volunteered at The Telling Room as a mentor in the Young Writers and Leaders Program and in the classroom. She is also a dancer, yoga teacher, and enthusiastic hiker.

Matty Oates

Matty Oates put down roots in Portland, Maine in 2015, pivoting from a mariner’s life at sea and over 70,000 nautical miles traveled, to a life by the sea where he was swept up by this quick-growing community. Since then, he has run a nonprofit connecting youth with voyages at sea, co-founded a media strategy agency that served statewide and national clients, and now sits on the digital marketing team at Unum. A steadfast reader from his earliest years, he believes the written word—in all its forms—is one of the most potent sources of creativity and change that humans possess, and it was inevitable that he would one day cross paths with The Telling Room. Through his friend Rob Gould, he was introduced to the brilliant team leading the organization forward, and has served on the Development and Events committees since 2023. Now, as a member of the board, he looks forward to contributing in ever new ways to the mission and helping support the exciting goals ahead.

Catherine Richards Olney

Originally from New Jersey, Board Secretary Catherine Richards Olney moved to Maine thirty-four years ago from Washington, DC. For the past twenty-plus years, she has primarily dedicated herself to not-for-profit board work with the following organizations: Coastal Studies for Girls, a science and leadership semester school for 10th graders; Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation, which is dedicated to affordable housing and economic development opportunities; Freeport Community Services, which provides services to connect neighbors and enrich lives; and Maine Women’s Fund, which makes bold investments that transform the lives of Maine women and girls. Within these organizations, Catherine has served a number of leadership roles including Board Chair. She has actively worked on Development, Governance and Personnel committees including drafting strategic plans, organizing special events and participating in Executive Director searches. Catherine is a graduate of ICL’s Leadership Intensive. She currently mentors a young Somali single mother and volunteers weekly at Partners for World Health. Through these experiences, Catherine has cultivated an awareness, fascination and dedication to a not-for-profit’s strength in creating programs with leadership platforms that allow everyone’s stories to emerge. Catherine is the mother of two adult children. She resides in Freeport, Maine with her husband.

Jordene Trueh

Jordene Trueh serves as a dedicated board member of the Telling Room, bringing many years of nonprofit management experience to the organization. With a strong passion for community engagement and youth development, Jordene is committed to fostering young leaders through writing and storytelling. As an Analyst at IDEXX Laboratories and the Founder of Backriver Blends, a Jamaican Specialty Foods company, Jordene combines her professional experience with her dedication to the community. Jordene holds a degree in Business Administration from Washington Adventist University. Although new to The Telling Room, Jordene hopes to inspire young writers and help advance the organization's mission. In addition to her role at The Telling Room, she also serves on other boards, contributing her skills and experience in multiple organizations. She resides in Topsham with her husband and two children, where she continues to be an active and influential member of the community.

Bob Zager

Board Treasurer Bob Zager currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Greater Portland Health (GPH), a nonprofit Federally Qualified Health Center. Prior to joining GPH, Bob directed finance and human resources at a network of public high schools serving at-risk youth and managed the first randomized controlled trial of child development accounts. Bob earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management, an MA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BS from Washington University in St. Louis. Outside of work, Bob lives in Portland with his wife and daughter, and originally hails from St. Louis (go Cards!). You can often find him outside hiking, running, or simply soaking up nature. Bob's father is a retired public school math and physics teacher, so he grew up around education. Though left-brained thinking came more naturally to him, he was grateful for having participated in a high school English program that opened up to him the world of literature, writing, and exploration of ideas through words. Bob is excited to help bring similar opportunities to young people in Maine through service on the Telling Room board.

Advisory Board

Susan Conley

Susan Conley is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including her recent, best-selling novel Landslide, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She is the co-founder of the Telling Room and was its first executive director. She has also served as a Telling Room Teaching Artist and Board Chair. She lives with her family in Portland, Maine, and teaches on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. 

Sara Corbett

Co-founder Sara Corbett is the author of Venus to the Hoop: A Gold-Medal Year in Women’s Basketball and A House in the Sky. She is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. Her feature stories have covered topics like child-trafficking in Cambodia, the resettlement of Sudanese orphans in the U.S., and the psychological struggle of soldiers wounded in Iraq.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc directed The Telling Room from 2006 to 2011 and still teaches workshops both here and at schools and organizations around New England. His first collection of poems, Death of a Ventriloquist, was chosen by Lisa Russ Spaar for the Vassar Miller Prize and published in 2012. His poems have appeared in magazines including Guernica, The New Republic, and Tin House, on the PBS NewsHour Art Beat, and have received awards from the Bellevue Literary Review and UC Berkeley. He lives in Portland with his wife and sons and is at work on more poems and a novel.  

Anja Hanson

Currently an academic advisor at Portland Adult Education, Anja Hanson has taught writing and basic computer skills to refugees and immigrants at Portland Adult Education and Barber Foods. She has also served as volunteer coordinator and grant writer at PAE. She started workin education as an English teacher in middle and high schools in Maine and California. She is fortunate to live with her family just three blocks from The Telling Room.

Patty Howells

Ex officio board president Patty Howells teaches cooking to kids and grown-ups--in her kitchen, in other people's kitchents and at summer cooking camp. Her training and expertise is in French cooking, but she enjoys all kinds of cuisine, and she believes everyone can learn to prepare and enjoy delicious, nourhsing foods. In previous lives, Patty has been a pastry chef, a civil rights investigator, a bicycle courier, a pregnancy counselor, a nutritionist and a Peace Corps volunteer. Patty has seen first-hand that stories (both inside and outside the kitchen) can change lives. She became a fan of The Telling Room the moment she encountered our earliest students' stories, and to this day she remains passionate about The Telling Room's work of empowering young people to find their voice through writing. 

Lily King

Lily King grew up in Massachussetts and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985 with a B.A. in English and Honors in Creative Writing. In 1991 she received an M. A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Lily is the author of the novels The Pleasing Hour, The English Teacher, Father of the Rain, and Euphoria. She is the recipient of the Whiting Writer's Award, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the New England Book Award and the Maine Literary Award in fiction, twice. She taught English and Creative Writing at Syracuse University, Harvard Extension School, The American School of Valencia in Spain, Noble and Greenough School and the Stonecoast Writers Conference, among others, and has visited many high schools and universities across the country as writer-in-residence. She lives in Portland with her husband and children. 

Celine Kuhn

Celine Kuhn is an organizational development consultant. Before starting her consulting practice, she was the Executive Director of The Telling Room for five years and worked at MaineHealth for 20 years in community health improvement. She is curious about systems and believes that both collaboration and fun are the keys to unlocking organizational potential. Celine is passionate about storytelling, social justice, and the arts. She is on the advisory board of both Blunt Youth Radio and Indigo Arts Alliance and serves on the Committee for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Yarmouth, Maine.

Ari Meil

Ari Meil is director of marketing at Maine Media Workshops. His books include Portland's Best, Portland Through the Lens, and The Way Life Should Be: Stories by Contemporary Maine Writers. Ari is also the author of 2 short novels, Triptych and Fiction.

Genevieve Morgan

Genevieve Morgan was a founding board member of The Telling Room and served as board president from 2008-2012. She is a writer and editor who has authored numerous works of non-fiction and a YA Fiction series called The Five Stones Trilogy. Formerly, she produced a local radio show focused on health and spent several years writing about women's health. Before that she was the managing editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco. She writes for a variety of corporate and editorial clients and is a marketing and brand consultant, but her true love lies in making up stories and telling them to anyone who will listen.

Michael Paterniti

Co-founder Michael Paterniti is the best-selling author of Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain; The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese; and Love and Other Ways of Dying, longlisted for the National Book Award. His work has appeared in publications including Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and GQ.

Board Committees

GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE

Catherine Richards, Chair, Board Secretary
Christine DeYoung, Community Member
Libby Lauze, Board Vice President
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Sonya Tomlinson, Staff

HUMAN RESOURCES COMMITTEE

Brita Loppnow, Chair, Board Member
Khadija Elbarkaoui, Community Member
Nancy Kittredge, Community Member
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Catherine Richards, Board Member
Jordene Trueh, Board Member

FINANCE COMMITTEE

Bob Zager, Chair, Board Treasurer
Jordanna Feely, Community Member
Tanuja Desai Hidier, Board President
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Sarah Schneider, Staff
Donna Simonetti, Community Member
Shannon Sonrouille, Community Member
Stacey Ventimiglia, Staff

DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE

Sara Crisp, Chair, Board Member
Joe Conway, Board Member
Sean Findlen, Board Member
Matt Grondin, Community Member
Rylan Hynes, Staff
Meredith McCarroll, Community Member
Matty Oates, Community Member
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Sarah Schneider, Staff
Debbie Weil, Community Member

EVENTS COMMITTEE

Matty Oates, Chair, Board Member
Sara Crisp, Board Member
Tanuja Desai Hidier, Board President
Rylan Hynes, Staff
Amy Kimball, Staff
Celine Kuhn, Community Member
Molly McGrath, Community Member
Sally Newhall, Community Member
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Sarah Schneider, Staff
Stacey Ventimiglia, Staff
Sandi Whiston, Community Member

SPACE COMMITTEE

Kyo Bannai, Community Member
Emma Collins, Community Member
Joe Conway, Board Member
Kim Holden, Community Member
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Tanuja Desai Hidier, Chair, Board President
Libby Lauze, Board Vice President
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Catherine Richards, Board Secretary
Bob Zager, Board Treasurer