News from the world of No You Tell It
Look below to see all that YOU helped us accomplish.
Please keep us in mind this Giving Tuesday by making a one-time tax-deductible donation or setting up a recurring one through our fiscal sponsor, The Field. Donate here! No donation is too small, and all go directly to compensating our Queens creative artists.
No, YOU Tell It!, in partnership with Poets of Queens, is proud to announce the forthcoming anthology, Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers, coming in the spring of 2026.
Prom Queens team. Photo credit Sachyn Mital.
Sharing stories about going or not going to prom allows us to find commonalities within each other’s unique cultures and identities. This anthology aims to help people, including future prom-goers, celebrate each other’s prom stories instead of feeling pressured to live up to what pop culture has taught us prom is supposed to look like.
What better place to give voice to a diverse range of prom stories than The World’s Borough!
Learn more about the anthology here.
Happy Halloween! Fun preview of our forthcoming Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers from Poets of Queens in spring of 2026.
WATCH anthology contributor and artist A. King McCarty perform “Zombie Prom Queen” at Grove 34 as part of our “Prom Queens” Bookend Event.
Follow us (and tell a friend!) @noyoutellit for updates.
Save the date for our next show: 9/17. This is going to be a super fun one! Get your tickets here.
Plus, other PROM QUEENS surprises! Save the date and see you in September.
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THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2025 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT.
This project is made possible (in part) with public funds from the
Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council
and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.
This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation
administered by Flushing Town Hall
Our four curated storytellers, along with a room packed with community participants, came together on May 3 for a generative workshop to inspire and share true tales inspired by the Queens Name Explorer.
Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons created this free community workshop in partnership with Queens Memory and the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
Watch how the stories we started that day evolved into these emotionally-charged story swaps at our May 28 “My Place” show. Thank you to videographer Nick Capezzera for capturing our first collaboration with Queens Memory!
Participants put themselves on the map in the culminating Six-Word “My Place in Queens” Memoir activity at the workshop.
Audience members added their six-word memoirs to the map at the show.
What’s your six-word “My Place in Queens” memoir?
Highlights from the map below:
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This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.
This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall.
2-3:30 pm at Broadway Library – Small Auditorium (40-20 Broadway, Queens)
FREE! RSVP HERE.
What’s your prom story—or what did you do instead?
Join us for a creative writing workshop where you’ll:
✍️ Write your own prom story with prompts from Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons and Zach Rothman-Hicks.
🎨 Trade portraits with a partner using transparency tracing and storytelling
📖 Hear a reading from Kelly Jean’s memoir “After After Prom”
📚 Have a chance to be published in the Prom Queens anthology from Poets of Queens!
Click here for more information on the Prom Queens workshops and anthology.
This project is made possible (in part) with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.
Thank you, thank YOU to everyone for such a beautiful “My Place” show! Click here for the full program.
Especially:
Check out the show photo album on Facebook or watch highlights on Instagram. Show video and podcasts coming soon!
Save the date for our next show: September 17, No, YOU Tell It! “Prom Queens” at Grove 34.
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This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.
This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall
Artwork by Ellen Stedfeld
What a wonderful “My Place in Queens” generative workshop this Saturday, May 3, at the Queens Public Library, Broadway Branch, with Queens Memory and the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
Join us at Grove 34 for No, YOU Tell It! “My Place” on May 28, to see how the stories we started together turn out!
Our four curated No, YOU Tell It! “My Place” storytellers, alongside a packed room full of community participants, generated poems and personal stories inspired by the historical significance behind the people’s names that grace Queens streets, parks, monuments, and more.
The opening prompt was inspired by a 2004 New York Times article Blood at the Gas Pumps; Queens Families Still Have Their Legacy, if Not Their Land, featuring Bob Singleton, Executive Director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
What do you feel like you were born knowing? About your family history? Queens? Both.
Then, participants rotated through four creative stations organized and facilitated by Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons, using the guest bell provided by Queens Memory curator J. Faye Yuan.
J. Faye Yuan gave a special presentation on the Queens Name Explorer, an interactive digital map that explores the individuals whose names grace public spaces across the borough of Queens.
Participants were then welcome to directly engage with the Queen Name Explorer on the screen and through customized coloring pages.
Bob Singleton presented four historical tales that he prepared for this event to highlight William Hallett, Hallet’s Cove, and Socrates Sculpture Park, such as this “British Soldier’s Story.”
Cemetery experts believed this unearthed stone could have been an uncarved tombstone.
After each of the four talks, the participants could ask Bob questions.
Did anyone ask why Hallett is sometimes spelled with one “t” and other times two?
NYTI Story Coach and QUEENSBOUND Board Member Pichchenda Bao gave participants time to study a series of Hallett’s Cove “Then & Now” photographs, such as this pair.
View looking south down the East River from between 1st Street and the waterfront. Hallett’s Cove in the foreground, Sohmer & Co. Piano factory building center left, Manhattan and Triboro Bridge right, 1945. Photo from the Queens Public Library Digital Archives.
View from the boardwalk adjacent to Astoria Ferry Terminal. Piano factory building and Hallett’s Cove Beach in the center, next to Socrates Sculpture Park, 2025. Photo courtesy of Nick Capezzra.
Then Chenda guided participants through a poetry prompt inspired by her work with Queensbound founder KC Trommer, who has a great poetry workshop coming up with Poets House that starts on May 17.
Check out the In-Person 4-Week Workshop: KC Trommer: City Poet: Writing Ekphrasis.
Love this poem written in response to the prompt by our own Tim Lindner!
Speaking of Tim Lindner! At our final station, Tim turned the Queens Name Explorer’s “Add Something to the Map” feature into a writing prompt to help participants brainstorm their personal connections to our shared Queens spaces.
The workshop culminated with the participants coming back together to distill all that they’d learned and written in the past two hours into a six-word memoir they added to the map created by artist Ellen Stedfeld. What a day!
Keep it going! Come to the No, YOU Tell It! “My Place” show on May 28th, and add your Six-Word “My Place in Queens” Memoir to the map.
Special thanks to William Klein and Palisades Convention Management for all the photocopies!
What’s your Queens story? Join us on May 3 for a free writing workshop to discover and trade the personal stories behind our shared public places.
Interact with Queens Name Explorer, an interactive digital map developed by Queens Memory, to learn the historical significance behind the people’s names that grace Queens streets, parks, monuments, and more.
Plus, artwork by Ellen Stedfeld and a special presentation from Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
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This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.
This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall.
Guess what? No, YOU Tell It! has received not one but TWO grants from Flushing Town Hall in support of our Queens programming – the 2025 GO Queens Grant and the Queens Community Arts Grant!
With the support of these grants, we are partnering with the Greater Astoria Historical Society and Queens Memory to produce writing workshops and shows where community participants and NYTI storytellers can engage with Queens history to inspire and experience each other’s true tales.
Register here for our May 3 “My Place in Queens” free workshop at the Queens Public Library at Broadway in Astoria.
No, YOU Tell It! is one of 25 Queens-based performing arts and culture organizations that received the GO Queens Grant to support our mission and work in the Queens community.
The Queens Community Arts Grant supports Queens-based community organizations, groups, and collectives to hold arts and cultural projects or activities for the public in Queens to enhance the cultural climate in communities and neighborhoods where they live and operate – to make the arts accessible to all.
Check out the other 2025 grantees here.
This grant will directly support our May 3 “My Place in Queens” free writing workshop and May 28 “My Place” show produced in partnership with the Greater Astoria Historical Society and Queens Memory.
At the May 3 workshop, the four No, YOU Tell It! “My Place” storytellers and community participants will use writing prompts to interact with Queens Name Explorer, an interactive digital map developed by Queens Memory.
Together, we will learn the historical significance behind the people’s names that grace Queens streets, parks, monuments, and more, while the storytellers generate ideas for the true tales they will trade on stage at the May 28 show.
Huge thank you to Flushing Town Hall, and we’ll see YOU in May for the workshop and show!!
This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.
This organization is funded in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall.
