2024 Year in Review: Our Work Is Not Done; It Is Only Just Beginning
Dear Yellow Arrow Community,
Each year Yellow Arrow Publishing selects a yearly value that embodies the energy we want to bring into our work, and for 2024, we selected AMPLIFY. Our priority this past year was to showcase our authors to a bigger audience, increase the conversations around our published creative works and their themes, and boost the understanding that our community has about these works, their writers, and the issues that matter most to them.
As executive director, I spent a significant amount of time this year sharing Yellow Arrow’s views on why we (still) need to fight for women’s voices and stories to be heard and shared, speaking on panels at literary festivals, writing retreats, networking events, and universities. After the election, I confess I had a moment of despair, wondering if my and our efforts have been in vain. The day after the election happened to be a regular Yellow Arrow board-meeting day and on a good day, those meetings are not filled with despair. Those meetings are filled with unflinching compassion, active listening, the freedom to express outrage, the warmth of unity, and the love for one another. The women on the Yellow Arrow board and in the Yellow Arrow community are reaffirming, passionate, and authentic. The creatives who joined me at that meeting on that day after the election reminded me that our work is not done. They reminded me that I am not alone in the critical work of uplifting women’s voices. And we want to remind you that you are not alone in the work of sharing your story.
When I think about what’s to come in the year ahead, I first turn to my writing. Whether it’s journaling, jotting down a note in my phone at the grocery store, or working on essay revisions for my MFA program at the University of Baltimore, writing gives me and our authors purpose. It allows us to turn our anguish into something meaningful, something actionable. It allows us to do the work of advocacy with our pens. We are talking about all of this behind the scenes, the importance of our work and the need for pen on paper, and are working toward our vision for 2025 with this in mind. We’ll introduce our thoughts for 2025 in the new year; for now, let’s take a moment to look back at all that we have done in our 2024 Year in Review. And we have done a lot.
Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY managing editor Dr. Tonee Mae Moll curated a stunning collection of poetry and prose this summer, and we celebrated with a reading on stage at the Baltimore Book Festival in the fall. We encourage you to read the full Vignette AMPLIFY series, which is available online at yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/amplify-2024 at no cost. Brigitte Winter’s poem “Seashell” particularly resonated with me as I reflected on this year. With Yellow Arrow Journal this year (Vol. IX), we first explored the theme of ELEVATE with guest editor Jennifer N. Shannon. The opening piece in ELEVATE, “Cicada” by Elliott batTzedek, speaks to this moment. Our second issue of Yellow Arrow Journal was kitalo, which focused on griefulness, exploring the intertwining of grief and gratitude. “Kitalo” is an empathetic Luganda term of solidarity offered when someone experiences a spectrum of loss. It directly translates to “this/that is tragic” but is far richer than that. The opening piece in kitalo, Kat Flores’ “Temporary Homes” takes the ideas explored in “Seashell” and “Cicada,” being truthful to oneself and those you love, even further.
Kitalo guest editor Tramaine Suubi shared, “Being the guest editor is a privilege, but the greatest gift I received in this role is true vulnerability. I grieve and give thanks alongside each of our artists here. I hope their words are lifegiving for you, just as they are for me.” (P.S. If you don’t have copies of either issue yet or want to gift them to someone for the holidays, you can buy them at a discount of $27 here.)
We published 79 incredible writers in Yellow Arrow Journal and Yellow Arrow Vignette this year and are so happy to have had the chance to hear so many diverse, rich voices. In addition to these creatives, we published three incredible poetry collections: Beyond the Galleons by Isabel Cristina Legarda, Iridescent Pigeons by Candace Walsh, and Ghosts Only I Can See by Julie Alden Cullinane. We recently announced our 2025 chapbook authors and are eagerly looking ahead to their publications next year and can’t wait to support them and our future vignette and journal authors.
With our Writers-in-Residence program, we were able to continue building community amongst local writers by offering unlimited workshops, one-on-one meetings with team members, and more in partnership with Bird-in-Hand bookstore. We were thrilled to have four talented Baltimore writers join us on their creative journeys this fall: Ashley Elizabeth, Kavitha Rath, Parisa Saranj, and Steph Sundermann-Zinger. Stay tuned for info about a reading featuring their work in early 2025!
In the spirit of AMPLIFY, we set out to spread the word about Yellow Arrow this year at literary events, universities, and through partnerships with Baltimore arts organizations. In March, we traveled to the AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) conference in Kansas City and connected with many of our Yellow Arrow contributors! We are delighted to share that we will again be attending AWP with a Yellow Arrow table in the book fair in March of 2025. We hope to see writers from our community in Los Angeles! And if you haven’t heard, AWP recently announced that the conference will be coming to our very own Baltimore in 2026—we cannot wait to show the literary world what Charm City has to offer!
We also spent a lot of time connecting further with our Baltimore-area community through speaking engagements and events including the Baltimore Book Festival, the CityLit Project, CHARM lit, Howard University Writers Guild, Loyola University, the Creative Alliance, the Entrepreneurs & Artists Podcast, B’more Kind, and Manor Mill. We gain momentum by collaborating with such incredible creative communities across Baltimore’s many thriving local arts neighborhoods.
Finally, this year, we are so thrilled that we were able to host over 20 workshops on craft writing topics! Our writing workshops are accessible, affordable, and foster a sense of community and support among writers in all stages of their creative journey.
We could never do this incredible work without our tremendous team who collaborate so diligently behind the scenes. Every single team member, whether volunteer, staff, workshop instructor, intern, guest editor, or board member, is focused on supporting and empowering women-identifying writers at every stage of their artistic journey.
We are so grateful for everyone’s continued support of women-identifying writers, and we need your support now more than ever. You can check out our holiday gift guide here. We welcome donations that support our mission, especially as we wrap up the year and plan for 2025. Donate today to support our 2025 initiatives! via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@DonateYAP), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, MD 21209). You can further support us by purchasing one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Once again, thank you for supporting independent publishing and women writers. See you in the new year!
Warmest Wishes,
Annie Marhefka and the Yellow Arrow Publishing team