June Creative Futures: Youth Arts & Creation Night!

It’s our first Creative Futures, a program for LGBTQ2IA+ youth to celebrate their creativity through arts and crafts and community! For ages 12-24, Creative Futures invites our young folks to tap into their inner creative spirit and use the arts to express and process their experiences. We will have some projects available for participants to pick up, or people can bring whatever they are working on!

This month, we have a special guest with author Taylor Tracy joining us. Sharing excerpts from her new book “Murray Out of Water”, Taylor will also be leading youth in a blackout poetry creative exercise. We will also have other arts/crafts activities for those who love visual and physical art forms. All skill and experience levels are welcome – this is a space to play around with your creativity with support from community.

Here’s some more info about Tracy and her book!

Taylor Tracy writes books filled with humor and heart that explore the joys and hopes of queer kids, focusing on mental health, found family, and the importance of a sense of community. She lives in New Jersey with her family, including a fluffle of mischievous rescue bunnies, and loves everything her home state has to offer: the best bagels, pizza, and beaches. When not writing, she can be found down the shore, in the rock gym or next to her growing pile of books to read and love. Visit her online at taylorismyfirstname.com.

“Murray Out of Water” Synopsis:

Perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead, Natalie Lloyd, and Jasmine Warga, this beautiful novel in verse explores one girl’s struggle to regain her magic after a hurricane forces her to move away from her beloved ocean that, she believes, has given her special powers.

Bighearted and observant twelve-year-old Murray O’Shea loves the ocean. Every chance she gets, she’s in it. It could be because the ocean never makes her apologize for being exactly who she is—something her family refuses to do—but it could also be because of the secret magic that Murray shares with the ocean. Though she can’t explain its presence, the electric buzz she feels from her fingertips down to her toes allows her to become one with the ocean and all its creatures, and it makes Murray feel seen in a way she never feels on land.

But then a hurricane hits Murray’s Jersey Shore home, sending the O’Sheas far inland to live with relatives. Being this far from the ocean, Murray seems to lose her magic. And stuck in a house with her family, she can no longer avoid the truths she’s discovering about herself—like how she feels in the clothes her mom makes her wear, or why she doesn’t have boys on the brain like other girls her age.

But it’s not all hurricanes and heartache. Thankfully, Murray befriends a boy named Dylan, who has a magic of his own. When Murray agrees to partner with him for a youth roller-rama competition in exchange for help getting her magic back, the two forge an unstoppable bond—one that shows Murray how it’s not always the family you were given that makes you feel whole…sometimes it’s the family you build along the way.