The Telling Room’s 2024 Young Emerging Authors Book Launch
Join The Telling Room’s 2024 Young Emerging Authors Fellows as they celebrate their book launch at SPACE. Authors Josie Ellis, Margaret Horton, Natalia Mbadu, and Madeleine Turgelsky took part in a nine-month fellowship with The Telling Room to write, revise, and publish their books with support from professional authors and writing mentors.
These forthcoming books include poetry of how water shapes us and our world, historical fiction about coming out in the ’80s and coming to terms with the AIDS epidemic in New York City, fantastical fiction filled with magical flora and fauna, and a memoir of finding oneself at the intersection of faith and mental health. Meet The Telling Room’s authors for an evening of poetry and prose as we celebrate these promising young voices in Maine’s literary community. This event is free and open to the public, with books available for purchase.
About the Authors:
Josie Ellis grew up in Washington D.C., but now resides in Portland, Maine, where she attends Casco Bay High School. A longtime lover of poetry and an alumnus of multiple Telling Room programs, Ellis was a junior when she joined Young Emerging Authors and wrote Brackish, her first collection of poetry. She sees writing as her way to connect with the world around her and cannot wait to see how her identity as a poet expands. When not writing, she enjoys studying history, being in nature, and dancing with friends.
Margaret Horton is a rising junior at Baxter Academy. She started writing early drafts of Unnamed at the start of the Covid pandemic four and a half years ago, as a way to escape to mystical worlds outside of her room. Since then, Margaret has participated in several Telling Room programs, including SWARM! and Writers Block. A nature lover and amateur artist, Margaret hopes to one day fill all of her neglected journals with ink.
In her debut book, a memoir, Natalia Mbadu weaves together poems, prose, and song lyrics that tell a story about hope in times of darkness and doubt. Growing up in an Angolan Christian household and moving to the United States at seven years old, Natalia contends with the pressure of navigating life as an immigrant in Portland, Maine. As mental health challenges and questions of faith surface, Natalia starts to sink. She asks herself where she will seek refuge. Where is God in the midst of all the chaos? God knows her, but does she know God? Surely the Darkness Will Cover Me asks the question: How do we find the light in our darkest times?
Madeleine Turgelsky is a Scholastic Award-winning author from the Coast of Maine. Through The Telling Room’s Young Emerging Authors program, she wrote her debut novel, At the Corner of Christopher Street as a sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School. When she’s not writing, you can find her in a light booth at Cape Elizabeth High School, on Pinterest, or passionately debating the most irrelevant thing she can think of. Madeleine loves to learn about the world around her and, despite what most people will tell you, is stubbornly an optimist.
