The Telling Room

Four storytellers- Thew Elliott, Kazeem Lawal, Donna McNeil, and Oliver Griswold, tell stories of "Gulp" moments including a mix tape that missed its mark, a pair of jeans that bought a young man his freedom, a summer tryst that tested a family's courage, and a political firestorm at a bucolic boarding school.

In this episode we go back to November 17, when we won a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award for our Young Writers and Leaders program. While our Executive Director Heather Davis and YWL alum Ibrahim Shkara accepted the award from First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House, over 100 students, mentors, teachers, and friends gathered at The Telling Room to watch the live stream and celebrate the program.

Storytellers included Kate Dalton, Abdi Nor Iftin, Karmo Sanders, Tina Smith, and Brendon Whitney

An interview with Aruna Kenyi, one of our first students

A look at how a piece of writing is chosen for our annual anthology

Five people tell live 10 minute stories on the theme of Home

TR Student Grace Whited talks with teacher Andrew Griswold about the success of her story, Box of Hope

A Conversation with writers Jaed Coffin and Fadumo Issack

We explore personification through student stories of objects - in this case an old truck and the ice on a winter lake

A look back at memorable stories from students Missouri Alice Williams and Edna Adan

A look back at some of our most memorable stories written by Omar Raouf, Aqila Sharafyar, and Sara Corbett

Five stories on the theme of wild from our Slant storytelling series in Deering Oaks Park this summer

Hear from Director of Publications Molly McGrath about our four young authors whose books are forthcoming

Six stories from our Slant series on the theme of Roots. Storytellers: Jim McCarthy, Donna Galluzzo, Nick Bloom, Nathan Salsburg, Genna Cherichello, and Jaed Coffin.

Hear from our two writing contest winners, Kaitlyn Knight and Alicia Thurston

Stories from our February Slant storytelling event

Our three founders speak about their lives as writers, how The Telling Room began, and why they chose Portland

These two stories by Maryama Abdi and Toby Choyt have been selected as finalists on the PRX Best Youth-Made Radio of 2013 playlist

A selection of some of our favorite student produced vox pop audio pieces from over the years

As we approach our 10 year anniversary, we decided to sit down with Telling Room co-founder Mike Paterniti to reflect on our beginnings and the stories from along the way