Yellow Arrow Journal is a biannual publication of creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art by writers and artists who identify as women.

About Yellow arrow Journal

It’s cover reveal time! Yellow Arrow Journal’s Vol. IX, No. 1 issue (spring 2024) on ELEVATE, guest edited by Jennifer N. Shannon, is available to preorder at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/yellow-arrow-journal-elevate-paperback. The issue will be released on May 7. Reserve your copy today.

The cover image (cover design by Alexa Laharty) by Lizzie Brown, acrylic on canvas, is titled “As I Am.” Lizzie is a Richmond-based artist and owner of From The Core Art Studio. According to Lizzie, her painting “depicts a woman embracing her flaws and scars, represented by a gold-filled crack down her back,” inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi. “As I Am” is an incredible “reminder that our imperfections make us beautiful, and our scars tell a story of what we’ve overcome.” Thank you Lizzie for creating such a wonderful artwork and for letting us share it. Catch Lizzie and Jennifer in a conversation about the artwork and art in life on our YouTube channel and below. Make sure you show your love on the video comments.

Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. IX, No. 2 (theme TBD) will open for submissions in August. For more information on how to submit to future issues, visit our submissions page. For an editorial statement from our Editor-in-Chief, see below.

You can find past issues of Yellow Arrow Journal in the Yellow Arrow bookstore, on Amazon and through most online distributors, and in bookstores in Baltimore and beyond.

Support the journal by prepurchasing a bundle of the 2024 (Vol. IX) issues at a discounted price before the issues are released, for yourself, for your office, or as a gift. Bundles are also available for the 2022 (Vol. VII) and 2023 (Vol. VIII) issues. Learn more about our bundles at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/yellow-arrow-journal-bundle.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support.

Meet the Guest Editors

Editorial statement

At Yellow Arrow Publishing, we pride ourselves on nontraditional publishing methods that align with our nontraditional publishing company. We seek to uplift underrepresented voices and to allow women-identifying writers to exist and be heard exactly as they are.

We believe that publishing is a vehicle for storytelling and that each storyteller should have the freedom to tell the truest version of their story. This means that we don’t focus on common style guides and norms and that we don’t change our authors’ voices into something they are not.

While we provide a basic copyedit of each journal issue, manuscript, and chapbook that we publish, we prioritize maintaining the unique voice and style of each of our authors. Instead of fixating on grammar perfection (though we will fix errant commas), we focus on the heart of each piece: we want the ideas, themes, and styles of our writers to shine.

We believe that every writer has a story to tell and that every story is worth telling.

We want every writer we publish to come out of the process feeling heard, valued, and needed.

We believe that your story matters. That you matter.

And we want you to be heard.

Kapua Iao, Editor-in-Chief

JOURNAL ISSUES: FROM JOURNEY (VOL. I) TO ELEVATE (VOL. IX, NO. 1)