PUBLISHING
"Our voices deserve to be heard. They also need to be. No one knows us better than we know ourselves, and we can write and share our own stories."
- Siri Pierce, 16, Telling Room Author
The Telling Room is a leader in youth publishing, an emerging niche of the publishing industry and a unique and inspiring model in the field of literary arts education and creative youth development. We produce carefully edited, beautifully designed, and locally printed books of our students’ stories, poems, and personal narratives. Through our first 15 years of youth publishing we published over 4,000 authors, and more than 30,000 Telling Room books are in circulation. And since the printing of our first book in 2007, I Remember Warm Rain, we have published nearly 200 more titles.
We have pioneered several innovative publication projects with young writers across Maine, and reach youth ages 6-18 from around the world through our online publication, Stories. Our publications and events support The Telling Room's suite of youth writing programs and send youth voices out to audiences across Maine, the U.S., and around the world. Currently, we publish between 15-20 titles a year.
Our young authors have created a buzz as their stories travel far outside their homes in Maine: they have appeared in many newspapers and magazines (including Poets & Writers, Fast Company, and the Boston Globe), on television and radio programs, and at renowned literary events, educational conferences, and have garnered attention at national award ceremonies such as Scholastic's National Arts & Writing Awards.
“Telling Room authors have won dozens of Scholastic Gold Keys!”
Two authors, Richard Akera and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Russo, talk about their writing lives, following the publication of their Telling Room book, The Story I Want to Tell:
YOUTH WRITERS OF MAINE
We are always looking for writing by Maine kids and teens, ages 6-18, to share with the world. This organization was founded by three Maine authors, Susan Conley, Sara Corbett, Michael Paterniti, who believed that Maine kids had stories to tell that were as valuable as their own. Because of this foundational belief, and our location in Maine, we prioritize the voices of Maine’s youth in our writing programs and publications.
Youth ages 6-18 who live in Maine are welcome to join our writing programs, and their writing may then be published in a book! In our core programs, students go beyond their writing work and get involved in the publishing process, from drafting, to revising, designing, and presenting their work in bound books to a public audience. Each of these programs makes publishing a goal from the get-go, and ensures that students will leave the program with a book in their hands, one that they feel they had a big stake in helping to create.
Forthcoming May 2025
This special 20th anniversary anthology includes twenty of the best pieces of writing from The Telling Room over the last ten years. This collection pairs youth voices with writers from our community—writing across genres, identities, experiences, and topics, with pen and ink illustrations throughout.