Join us at Words that Change the World, a novel fundraising event to benefit The Telling Room. This first-of-its-kind night at Ocean Gateway on Thursday, May 16th will feature world-changing wordsmiths and storytellers—both emerging and established—whose work has a tangible impact on our community. The evening begins at 5pm with a host reception, followed by a powerful program of performers and writers at 6pm:
Drag Storytime with Chartreuse Money
Ian-Khara Ellasante, Poet & Scholar
Callie Ferguson, Investigative Journalist
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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.
Featuring Telling Room Authors
Cameron Jury, Leigh Ellis, and Mo Drammeh
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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 will be a junior at Columbia College in the fall studying Creative Writing and Education, and is overjoyed to be spending their 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 support 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 is excited to support our partner in programming, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, which works to enrich the literary life and culture of Maine.
We hope you’ll join us for this special night as we uplift and support Maine’s vibrant community of writers. Details on General Admission tickets and Host Committee ticket levels are available below.
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS
General admission tickets are $50 per person. Purchase includes one ticket (1) to the 70 minute event with our prestigious line up of storytellers & wordsmiths, starting at 6pm. Cash bar available.
Please note:
Seats will not be assigned for the program.
HOST COMMITTEE TICKETS
EM DASH HOST - $175
One (1) ticket to the reception from 5:00pm - 6:00pm with complimentary bar & bites by The Bread & Butter Catering Company, Brûlée Bike, and Dean’s Sweets.
One (1) ticket to the 70 minute event with our prestigious line up of storytellers & wordsmiths, starting at 6pm.
Name printed in the event program (if desired) and in publications leading up to the event.
AMPERSAND HOST - $500
Two (2) tickets to the pre-show reception from 5:00pm - 6:00pm with complimentary bar & bites by The Bread & Butter Catering Company, Brûlée Bike, and Dean’s Sweets.
Two (2) tickets to the 70 minute event with our prestigious line up of storytellers & wordsmiths, starting at 6pm.
Name printed in the event program (if desired) and in publications leading up to the event.
EXCLAMATION POINT! HOST - $1,000
Four (4) tickets to the pre-show reception from 5:00pm - 6:00pm with complimentary bar & bites by The Bread & Butter Catering Company, Brûlée Bike, and Dean’s Sweets.
Four (4) tickets to the 70 minute event with our prestigious line up of storytellers & wordsmiths, starting at 6pm.
Name printed in the event program (if desired) and in publications leading up to the event.
We value inclusion and access for all participants and are pleased to provide reasonable accommodations for this event. Please contact sarah@tellingroom.org with requests. Requests must be submitted by May 1st, 2024. Thank you.
Our 2024 Words that Change the World
Host Committee
Anonymous
Kyo Bannai
Aimée & Mark Bessire
Peyton Black
Valerie Brock
Tyler Clements & Lily King
Susan Conley & Tony Kieffer
Joe Conway & Jenny Dougherty
Sara Corbett & Mike Paterniti
Sara Crisp & Gregg Lipton
Patty Dodd
Susanne Dunlap
Shari Elder
Taffy Field
Sean T. Findlen & Amy Tessendorf
Catherine Fisher
Tanuja Desai Hidier & Bernard Hidier
Patty Howells
Spencer & Emily Jones
Celine Kuhn
Mary Allen Lindemann & James Hoban
Libby & Michael Lauze
Giovanna Gray Lockhart
Molly McGrath
Charles Miller
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
Debra Spark
Alice & Dick Spencer
The Form Lab
The Poets Corner - Meg Weston
Kristin Kellogg Valdmanis
John Williams
Carol & Joe Wishcamper
Bob Zager
Thank You to Our Corporate Sponsors
Paragraph Sponsors
Stanza Sponsors
Sentence Sponsors
Word Sponsors
Special Thanks
The Telling Room’s 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