Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog
Meet the 2025 Yellow Arrow Publishing Best of the Net Nominees
Best of the Net recognizes the work of writers published online by independent presses. The project was started in 2006 by Sundress Publications to create a community among the online literary magazines, journals, and self-publishing platforms. The award represents an incredible opportunity for Yellow Arrow Publishing to further showcase and support our authors. Our staff is committed to letting our authors’ shine. Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling.
Here are our Best of the Net 2025 nominees from Vignette SPARK. You can find some of our authors reading from SPARK on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel. Best of the Net announces the winners in January.
Angela Acosta
Angela Acosta (she/her) is a bilingual Latina poet and an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of South Carolina. She is a 2022 Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers finalist, 2022 Somos en Escrito Extra-Fiction Contest honorable mention, and Utopia Award nominee. Her work has appeared in Panochazine, Pluma, Toyon Literary Magazine, and The Acentos Review. Her creative and academic work centers on imagining possible worlds and preserving the cultural legacies of women writers. She is the author of Summoning Space Travelers (Hiraeth Publishing, 2022), A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness (Red Ogre Review, 2023), and her forthcoming chapbook, Fourth Generation Chicana Unicorn (Dancing Girl Press, 2024).
Tijanna O. Eaton
“And Her Eyes Fell from the Scale”
creative nonfiction
Finally, animated by their generous and generative support, the chapter was complete. The ouroboros had uncoiled fully, metamorphosing into a dragon.
Tijanna O. Eaton (Tə-zha-na; she/her) is a Black poly kinkster queerdo pocket butch with a high school diploma and a rap sheet. She has been published in Honey Literary, Noyo Review, Panorama Journal (nominated for a Pushcart Prize), and Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK. She received the 2021 Unicorn Authors Club Alumni award, was a 2023 Rooted & Written Fellow, and was the 2024 Best of the Net nonfiction judge. Tijanna is board chair of Five Keys Schools and Programs, served on QWOCMAP’s board from 2016 to 2018, and was IMsL’s POC liaison from 2015 to 2017. Visit bolt-cutters.com for more information.
Marisa Victoria Gedgaudas
“Colygraphia”
poetry
. . . . The syrupy seduction of believing that I can be a keeper of stories but not the teller of them.
Marisa Victoria Gedgaudas is a writer originally from Colorado who now lives on the windswept bluffs of northern California. She is most inspired by the wild beauty around her and is often found exploring the mountains of her childhood, the unspoiled Pacific coast, and the desert landscapes in between. She is currently working on her first collection of poetry.
Charlene Langfur
“The Way Back”
poetry
. . . steady
or true, a time to rebuild a small world
that works when I am trying to put
myself back together this way
in time . . .
Charlene Langfur is an LGBTQ and green writer and an organic gardener living in the very hot, southern Californian desert. She was a graduate fellow in the Syracuse University Writing Program and her most recent publications include poems in Poetry East (the special Monet edition), The Hiram Poetry Review, London’s Acumen, and The North Dakota Quarterly.
Laurel Maxwell
“A Full Life”
poetry
. . . . To fold ourselves like a paper crane into the creases of delicate existence.
Laurel Maxwell is a poet from Santa Cruz, California, whose work is inspired by life’s mundane and the natural world. Her work has appeared at baseballballard.com, coffecontrails, phren-z, Verse-Virtual, Tulip Tree Review, and Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK. Her creative fiction was a finalist for Women on Writing Flash Fiction Contest. She has a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. When not writing Laurel enjoys putting her feet in the sand, reading, traveling, and trying not to make too much of a mess baking in a too small kitchen. She works in education.
Katherine Shehadeh
“My son wants to know what happened before the universe &”
poetry
today we learned the universe was created by fire—an explosion tinier than a tiny pin prick, and the universe, it’s expanding all the time, stretching this way, pulling that, until a moment when it isn’t and it gets smaller & tighter, until it turns back into a tiny little thing, tinier than a pin prick.
Katherine Shehadeh is a poet, artist, and current reader for Chestnut Review who resides with her family in Miami, Florida. Her recent poems appear in Maudlin House, Drunk Monkeys, Saw Palm, and others. Find her on Twitter @your_mominlaw or Instagram @katherinesarts.
Ann van Wijgerden
“Dear Planet”
poetry
. . . . But it was the waters captivating me in aqua hues, light scattering diamantine, undulating surfaces, their expanses exhaling, inhaling, exhaling.
Ann van Wijgerden, born in the United Kingdom, has spent most of her adult life in the Netherlands and the Philippines. She has had nonfiction, poetry, and fiction published (or accepted for future publication) in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Genre: Urban Arts, Orion, Orbis, The Sunlight Press, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK, The Wild Umbrella, and the Queen’s Quarterly. Ann cofounded and works for an NGO called Young Focus (youngfocus.org), which provides education for children living in Manila’s area of ‘Smokey Mountain.’
Veronica Wasson
“On Clothing (Five Pieces)”
creative nonfiction
Clothing was the most visible manifestation of what I was and what I wasn’t; of who I wanted to be and who I dreamed of becoming.
Veronica Wasson (she/her) is a trans writer living in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Spectrum, smoke + mold, The Seventh Wave, Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK, and elsewhere. You can find her work at veronica-wasson.com.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we AMPLIFY women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Shine your light bright: Baltimore creatives radiate in Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY
Welcome to the third annual release of Yellow Arrow Vignette, Yellow Arrow Publishing’s online creative nonfiction and poetry series. For this issue, we aligned with our 2024 yearly value and chose AMPLIFY, though we did not ask submitters to send in pieces on theme; rather, staff at Yellow Arrow used the idea in-house as a reminder to continue to share and amplify women-identifying voices. With that, here is the AMPLIFY issue of Yellow Arrow Vignette:
yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/amplify-2024
With Vignette AMPLIFY, we wanted to return to some of the earliest goals of Yellow Arrow: circulating and augmenting the creative work of voices and themes that aren’t heard loudly enough. And as part of the return to our roots, we wanted to showcase writers who live in or are otherwise connected to our home base of Baltimore. We want our readers to experience the spectrum of voices that Charm City offers.
Before diving into the pages of AMPLIFY, explore the cover art for the issue, “shine your light bright” by Kara Panowitz. Kara has lived in Baltimore City for 19 years. According to Kara, “A positive light needs to shine on Baltimore, amplifying all that’s good about the city. A city of neighborhoods, the sunset highlights the Baltimore classic rowhouse, with the iconic skyline standing strong in the background. I love the way the light makes Baltimore glow in this image.” Kara loves documentary photography, taking photos on hikes, and capturing Baltimore in different lights and seasons. Her photography has been chosen for local art exhibitions.
We hope you see the same light glimmering on the Baltimore rooftops shining on the poetry and creative nonfiction in AMPLIFY. Start with “IT WORKS, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT” by Tracy Dimond, who gracefully writes “I’ve never felt so womanly / Since having a hysterectomy // A hollowed-out Barbie / The aesthetic without the danger” and continue through to “Wish You Were Here” by Barbara Westwood Diehl. “Wish You Were Here” ends the series with an incredible vision: “In the city of Wish You Were Here, you will not see the castle washed away.” We don’t want to give too much away in this release. Rather, we ask that you read the words and AMPLIFY pages slowly and really take in and experience the different emotions found within.
Thank you to all the writers who followed the call for amplification and sent in their beautiful pieces. We were amazed by the breadth of our collection of submitters and hope that you have the opportunity to amplify your own voice along with any others that surround you. And to the incredible creatives who let us include their work in AMPLIFY: Trish Broome, Barbara Westwood Diehl, Tracy Dimond, Kay White Drew, Jennifer Martinelli Eyre, Katherine Fallon, Robin L. Flanigan, My-Azia Johnson, Diane Macklin, B. Morrison, Sierra Offutt, Christine Pennylegion, Anna Slesinski, Laura Taber, Brigitte Winter, and Cherrie Woods (aka Cherrie Amour). Thank you for trusting us with your words.
Also, thank you to the Yellow Arrow Vignette team, Dr. Tonee Mae Moll and Isabelle Anderson, for their work on the series. Our staff diligently reads through every submission, works on editing every sentence, and contributes amazing feedback to our authors and submitters! Given this, we would also like to thank our wonderful editorial associates, readers, and interns for this issue: Sydney Alexander, Jill Earl, Angela Firman, Marylou Fusco, Caroline Kunz, Alexa Laharty, Sophia Lama, Amaya Lambert, Siobhan McKenna, Sara Palmer, Samantha Pomerantz, Nicky Ruddell, Mel Silberger, Claire Taylor, and Ally Waldon.
The reading for Vignette AMPLIFY will be in-person at the Baltimore Book Festival on September 28. More information is forthcoming.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we AMPLIFY women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Meet a Staff Member: Isabelle Anderson
Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to (re)introduce Isabelle Anderson, Vignette Assistant for 2024’s Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY. Isabelle (she/her) was a publications intern at Yellow Arrow in 2022. She is a poet and fiction writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She recently graduated with a BA in English from Washington College where she was a finalist for the Sophie Kerr Prize and the recipient of The Pfister Poetry Prize through the Academy of American Poets. When she is not reading or writing, she can be found on a nature walk, checking the trees for good spots to hide golf pencils à la Mary Oliver.
Submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY are open April 1-30 and will be shared in August, ending with the AMPLIFY reading in the fall. Unlike past issues, this issue of Vignette does not ask submitters to send in pieces on the theme of AMPLIFY; rather, staff at Yellow Arrow are using the idea (our 2024 yearly value) in house as a reminder to continue to share and amplify women-identifying voices. We want to return to some of the earliest goals of Yellow Arrow: sharing and amplifying the creative work of voices and themes that aren’t heard loudly enough. And this summer, the Vignette series is dedicated to emphasizing those women who aren’t often heard enough, and the stories, essays, poems, themes, and topics that are too often missed. Better yet, we’re focusing on Baltimore itself and want to hear from all our women-identifying creatives currently from or lived in the area. Learn more about our focus, our guidelines, and how to submit at yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions.
We are happy to have Isabelle rejoin us for this year’s Vignette series. She says, “I’m looking forward to reading for the upcoming issue with a level of general excitement, to see what the women of Baltimore are working on, and to revel in all the beautiful creativity happening around me.”
Tell us a little something about yourself:
For a long time, my genre of choice was fiction, and, in a way, my love for poetry snuck up on me. I didn’t read much poetry until a few years ago, and discovering many contemporary women writing poetry really sparked my interest in writing it myself.
What do you love most about Baltimore?
Within the last few years, I’ve worked at a couple small businesses around Baltimore County, and I love the ways they intersect with the community. From working in local food service and creative spaces, I’ve met so many neighbors and found information on book clubs and writing groups I might not have otherwise.
How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow? Why did you want to join the Yellow Arrow team?
Initially, I worked with Yellow Arrow as an intern in 2022, but my current role is as the Vignette Assistant for the upcoming issue. I wanted to rejoin the Yellow Arrow team because my internship had been such a positive experience and I’ve always admired the mission of highlighting women-identifying writers.
What are you working on currently?
Lately I’ve been trying to refine some work (mostly poems) for MFA applications and potential publication along with working on a long-form fiction project about sisterhood.
What genre do you write or read the most and why?
Poetry! I love the freedom it allows, and how it can give a home to my detail-obsessive brain.
What book is on the top of your to-be-read pile?
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo—I haven’t committed to it yet, but I’ve heard great things and really love to see the ways LGBTQ+ experience have been highlighted in the Yellow Arrow space in recent years.
Who is your favorite writer and why?
Olivia Gatwood. I hugely credit her poetry collection Life of the Party for cementing my interest in poetry and informing a lot of my earlier attempts at writing poems myself. Her poems are often heavily narrative—which appealed to the fiction writer in me—and simultaneously manage to take on such an etherically musical quality.
Who has inspired and/or supported you most in your writing journey?
My three little sisters Madeleine, Genevieve, and Juliette inspire and support me every day in writing and beyond by being the hilarious, imaginative, and lovely girls they are.
What do you love most about writing?
That it’s a quiet act while quite literally being anything but quiet. I’ve always been fairly self-contained, so I think as a child I was drawn into writing largely because it is an activity that can be done alone and can be silent, yet it produces something expressive and something through which people can connect.
What advice do you have for new writers?
To follow what feels good about writing. While I’ve had an interest in writing fiction for quite a long time, I started experimenting with poetry not that long ago and found the genre just seemed to fit me well. As I’ve learned more about form, it’s started to help me make sense of certain patterns of mine—like what details I find interesting and how my ideas develop—and I think the best way for a newer writer grow and better understand their own process is to first follow what’s enjoyable and interesting, then move from there.
What’s the most important thing you always keep near where you work?
A cup full of colorful markers and highlighters—I love color-coordinated notes!
What’s your vision for Yellow Arrow in 2024?
My vision is a continuation on the preexisting mission to give space to women-identifying writers, and I hope we reach even more women in the Baltimore area with Vignette specifically.
Baltimore creatives who identify as women: check out our call for Yellow Arrow AMPLIFY at https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions—we would love to read what you write! Submissions are open through April 30.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we AMPLIFY women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Meet a Staff Member: Dr. Tonee Mae Moll
Yellow Arrow Publishing is thrilled to introduce Dr. Tonee Mae Moll, Vignette Managing Editor for 2024’s Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY. Tonee Mae (she/they) is a queer and trans writer and educator who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a PhD in English from Morgan State University and an MFA in creative writing & publishing art from the University of Baltimore. Tonee Mae is an assistant professor of English at a community college in Maryland. Her debut memoir, Out of Step, won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and the 2017 Non/Fiction Prize. It was also featured on the American Library Association’s annual list of notable LGBTQ+ books. Her latest poetry collection, You Cannot Save Here, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. Tonee Mae’s poetry has also received the Adele V. Holden award for creative excellence and the Bill Knott Poetry Prize. It has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and Tonee Mae was recently a finalist for the Baker Artist Award in Literary Arts. She is a Gemini.
Submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY are open April 1-30 and will be shared in August, ending with the AMPLIFY reading in the fall. Unlike past issues, this issue of Vignette does not ask submitters to send in pieces on the theme of AMPLIFY; rather, staff at Yellow Arrow are using the idea (our 2024 yearly value) in house as a reminder to continue to share and amplify women-identifying voices. We want to return to some of the earliest goals of Yellow Arrow: sharing and amplifying the creative work of voices and themes that aren’t heard loudly enough. And this summer, the Vignette series is dedicated to emphasizing those women who aren’t often heard enough, and the stories, essays, poems, themes, and topics that are too often missed. Better yet, we’re focusing on Baltimore itself and want to hear from all our women-identifying creatives currently from or lived in the area. Learn more about our focus, our guidelines, and how to submit at yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions.
It’s been a joy getting to know Tonee Mae as we planned this year’s Vignette series. She says, “I was lying with my partner, exhausted after a long week, when I got the news that I’d be working with Yellow Arrow this year. I bolted up in bed as I read the email, told them the news, then immediately started crying. Big heavy sobs. That partner doesn’t work in writing, but they got it anyway—they could see how important it is for a women’s publication to select a trans woman for such a role. This should be normal by now, but it remains exceptional, and I’m excited to be part of a team that celebrates trans women and is making sure we’re not squeezed out of the conversation during a period of heightened transphobia, both in the U.S. and globally.”
Tell us a little something about yourself:
I am a queer and trans poet and essayist living in Baltimore. I have a couple of books, and they’ve won a couple of awards (including a Lambda Literary Award). I grew up loving D&D, punk rock, and in-line skating, and somehow, I’ve become an adult who loves poetry, Queer theory, and feminist epistemologies.
What do you love most about Baltimore?
I LOVE Baltimore. I tell people everywhere I go about how amazing this city is. It’s even on my dating profile. What I love most is the fact that the doors are wide open. Anyone can show up with any wild idea, find a scene that’s eager to have them, and start making something: music, literature, visual art, performance—whatever. Like, did you know that Baltimore is known for being a hub for puppetry? It’s also a town that is very Queer and very trans, and there, too, folks can just show up and there’s someone here with open arms. It’s not without its challenges, and it's a city that deserves better than we get sometimes—our lawmakers, our reputation, the attention our brilliant communities and artists receive—but those challenges are part of the atmosphere that make it what it is.
How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow? Why did you want to join the Yellow Arrow team?
I met founding editor Gwen Van Velsor years ago through the Baltimore literary scene, and I’ve been following Yellow Arrow since it began! For years I’ve watched all the cool stuff that has been developed, and this winter, when the posting for managing editor came across my social media, I felt for the first time like I was in an ideal space to get involved. I joined because I believe in the work that is being done to amplify and champion women’s writing, and I was eager to jump in!
What are you working on currently?
A year and a half out from my last book, I have three big writing projects, and they’re all sort of fighting for the “front burner.” Beyond my own writing though, I’m currently in the throes of helping to organize the 2024 CityLit Festival. The CityLit board supports the director, Carla Du Pree, in making all that festival’s many moving parts possible, and it’s a HUGE effort.
What genre do you write or read the most and why?
I’m sort of skeptical of the firm boundaries that are put around genre and that’s mostly because I write a bit of everything. Rather than thinking intentionally about genre, I try to just make interesting, emotionally honest things, and let an editor figure out how to categorize it. That being said, my MFA thesis (along with my first book) is labeled “creative nonfiction,” and my PhD dissertation (and second book) is categorized as poetry. I mostly write where those two waters meet, and I tell folks that I write lyrical work that tends to be true and is often about gender.
What book is on the top of your to-be-read pile?
I’m currently finishing up Stephanie Burt’s We Are Mermaids, and up next is the work of one of my colleagues, Susan Muaddi Darraj. She’s a Palestinian-American author whose latest novel, Behind You is The Sea, is getting some much-deserved national attention. I can’t wait to dig in.
Who is your favorite writer and why?
I think Toni Morrison is THE Great American Novelist. Her work—its beauty, its violence, its ugly, its honesty—tells the story of America otherwise erased or ignored by earlier writers, scholars, and historians. She is unparalleled.
Who has inspired and/or supported you most in your writing journey?
I’ve had incredible mentors and educators, particularly in my graduate education. Among the people who helped mold me as an artist are Kendra Kopelke, celeste doaks, Marion Winik, and Betsy Boyd. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention my writing workshop, a small group of friends who have been meeting monthly for nearly a decade; they played a big part in getting my first two books ready for the world!
What do you love most about writing?
Sometimes I remind my students that when we daydream of the magic in some of the fantasy worlds they read, we should be reminded that writing is the closest thing we have to it here. Writing is marks on a page (or screen) that have been cast down by someone who has studied their craft deeply for years, sometimes decades, that sit there until such a time that someone else reads it, and the feeling, meaning or idea that the creator left in those marks is passed to the reader, across distance and time. Those ideas that are passed on can create new possibilities in the reader’s mind: new worlds, new concepts of self, new optimisms, even new notions of “we.”
What advice do you have for new writers?
The writing is the thing. There are countless people who want to say, “I have this idea for a novel,” but it’s not the idea that makes a book. It’s showing up to write, to hone your craft, to gather and consider feedback, to revise—all the things it takes to actually finish a manuscript. An idea doesn’t make an author, work does.
What’s the most important thing you always keep near where you work?
Water. I’m sure I should say something cooler, but all of us should be hydrating more. (Check in: when was the last time you had a drink of water, reader?)
What’s your vision for Yellow Arrow in 2024?
I’m excited about this year’s value being AMPLIFY, and I hope we can make Vignette continue to do exactly that this year. Part of what this year’s theme means to me is remembering that the goal of publishers, journals, and literary organizations isn’t to speak for those who aren’t heard loudly enough, but to pass the mic and help amplify those people as they speak for themselves. That’s one thing that Vignette and Yellow Arrow can do: turn up the volume on the important words of women who don’t get heard often enough, loudly enough, frequently enough.
Baltimore creatives who identify as women: check out our call for Yellow Arrow AMPLIFY at yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions—we would love to read what you write! Submissions are open through April 30.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we AMPLIFY women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Yellow Arrow Vignette 2024 AMPLIFY Submissions Are Now Open!
Welcome to the first day of open submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette! Now in its third season, Yellow Arrow Vignette is an online creative nonfiction and poetry series developed to better feature women-identifying writers and share their voices beyond Yellow Arrow Journal and our single-author publications. This year, submissions for Vignette are open from April 1 to 30 and will align with the 2024 Yellow Arrow yearly value AMPLIFY.
(Please note that this issue of Vignette does not ask submitters to send in pieces on the theme of AMPLIFY; rather, staff at Yellow Arrow are using the idea in house as reminder to continue to share and amplify women-identifying voices.)
We’re here this year to showcase our authors to a bigger audience, to increase the conversations around our published creative works and their themes, and to increase the understanding that our audience has about these works, their writers, and the issues that matter most to them. And for Vignette AMPLIFY, we want to hear specifically from creatives who live in or are otherwise connected to our home base of Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is a big, diverse, beautiful city, and we want to see its diversity represented in Vignette AMPLIFY. From Highlandtown (our starting point!) to Hampden, Pigtown to the Black Arts District, we want our readers to experience the spectrum of voices that Charm City offers. If you currently live, grew up in, or recently lived in the Baltimore area and are a creative who identifies as a woman, read the guidelines and submit at yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions.
We’ve been making some exciting, behind-the-scenes updates to Vignette this year! One such change is that Vignette AMPLIFY will be curated and created by Vignette managing editor Dr. Tonee Mae Moll and Vignette assistant Isabelle Anderson. Tonee Mae (she/they) is joining the team this spring and summer from Baltimore, the place where our story started and the focus of AMPLIFY. She holds a PhD in English from Morgan State University and an MFA in creative writing and publishing art from University of Baltimore. Tonee Mae has worked for a number of literary organizations and publications throughout the region, including Mason Jar Press, Washington Writers Publishing House, The Sable Quill, Welter Literary Journal, CityLit Project, and more. She is the author of two books, Out of Step: a Memoir (Mad Creek Books, 2018) and You Cannot Save Here (Washington Writer’s Publishing House, 2022), and the former cohost of the literary podcast Lit!Pop!Bang!
Tonee Mae Moll
Isabelle Anderson
Isabelle (she/her) is a poet and fiction writer, also from Baltimore. She recently graduated with a BA in English from Washington College where she was a finalist for the Sophie Kerr Prize and the recipient of The Pfister Poetry Prize through the Academy of American Poets. When she is not reading or writing, she can be found on a nature walk, checking the trees for good spots to hide golf pencils à la Mary Oliver.
For Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY, we’re looking for creative nonfiction, poetry, and ‘cover art’ by writers/artists who identify as women and have a connection to the Baltimore area. For more about what this means and for information on how to submit, please visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions. Let us amplify your voice and ensure that it rings clearly, truly, and beautifully. Let’s show how proud we are of Charm City and all that our incredible city has to offer.
If you have any questions, send them to submissions@yellowarrowpublishing.com. The online issue will be released on August 6, 2024, and a reading will follow in the fall.
We look forward to reading the submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette and sharing stories with you. Since its founding in 2016, Yellow Arrow has worked tirelessly to make an impact on the local and global community by advocating for writers that identify as women. Yellow Arrow proudly represents the voices of women from around the globe. Creating diversity in the literary world and providing a safe space is deeply important. Every writer has a story to tell, every story is worth telling.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we AMPLIFY women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Meet the 2023 Yellow Arrow Best of the Net Nominees
The Best of the Net recognizes the work of writers published online by independent presses. The project was started in 2006 by Sundress Publications to create a community among the online literary magazines, journals, and self-publishing platforms. The award represents an incredible opportunity for Yellow Arrow Publishing to further showcase and support our authors. Our staff is committed to letting our authors shine. Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling.
Here are our Best of Net nominees from Vignette AWAKEN for 2023. You can find some of our authors reading from AWAKEN on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.
L.M. Cole
“Lately I’ve Been Talking Too Much”
I, an object, shattered into fragments,
am searching for the phrase
that nobody would understand
but you, who have listened with
patience to myself in fractals of light and perspective
L.M. Cole is a poet and artist residing on the U.S. East Coast. She is the coeditor of Bulb Culture Collective and a poetry reader for Moss Puppy Magazine, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, The Pinch Journal, CLOVES, Stanchion, Defunct Magazine, and others. Her debut poetry chapbook SALT MOUTH MOSS QUEEN (Alien Buddha Press 2022) is available on Amazon. Find her on Twitter @_scoops__ and on her website poetlmcole.com.
L.M. was also one of the contributing authors of Vignette SPARK with her poem “Just Make Art, They Say.” You can find an interview between L.M. and Melissa Nunez from earlier this year at yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/interview-nunez-cole.
Maggie Flaherty
“Tacoma”
Awake! Awake! The closer
I look, the more I see this earth—
this present moment—burning.
Where’s a gust of healing rain,
a soothing wind that lifts
or sets us down gently?”
Maggie Flaherty began writing poems in high school but stopped for a busy 50 years or so. In 2016, after retiring, she attended a workshop taught by the poet and essayist Lia Purpura at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. There, her interest in poetry returned like a homing pigeon. In 2020, she graduated from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University with a master’s in poetry. These days, she works in the garden or watches the birds. That’s where many of her poems begin: in the always-changing weather.
Kerry Graham
“Reminder”
Nudging my door open, I step into, on, among stillness. My eyes wander within the room’s four walls, where my lovelies and I will make another year’s worth of memories, magic, mistakes.
Kerry Graham is a Baltimore-based writer, book coach, and former high school English teacher. Her newsletter, Real Quick, is a monthly glimpse into her writer life. Kerry is a Creative-in-Residence at The Baltimore Banner.
Nancy Huggett
“I Am Full of Milk and Walking”
To make things right.
I stride,
eyes bright from sleepless nights
and this thin slice of freedom
Nancy Huggett is a settler descendant who lives, writes, and care-gives in Ottawa, Canada, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. Thanks to Firefly Creative, Merritt Writers, and not-the-rodeo poets, she has work out/forthcoming in Braided Way, Event, Five Minute Lit, Intima, Literary Mama, Pangyrus, Poetry Pause, Prairie Fire, Reformed Journal, (RE) An Ideas Journal, and Waterwheel Review.
Janice Northerns
“Something Like Love”
But what has never faded is the piercing grief I felt that first visit when I stumbled into the kitchen in that predawn dark and discovered the bowl, the spoon, the oatmeal—the simple morning still-life my mother had laid out for my father. And with it, my realization that he was dying.
Janice Northerns is the author of Some Electric Hum (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020), winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Nelson Poetry Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. She grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award. Other honors include a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a Brush Creek Foundation writing residency, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. She lives in Kansas and is currently working on her second book, a hybrid collection of poetry and essays inspired by the life of Cynthia Ann Parker.
Shikhandin
“Epiphany”
. . . .But you are alive still. And so
is time and breath and your jam-jarred dreams. All
it needs is a flick of your wrist to open.
Shikhandin is the pen name of an Indian writer. Books include After Grief – Poems, Impetuous Women, Immoderate Men, and Vibhuti Cat. Honors include, runner up in the George Floyd Short Story Contest (2020, United Kingdom), Pushcart Prize nominee by Aeolian Harp (2019, U.S.), Pushcart Prize nominee by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (2011, Hong Kong), winner of the 2017 Children First Contest curated by Duckbill in association with Parag, an initiative of Tata Trust, first prize in the Brilliant Flash Fiction Contest (2019, U.S.), runner up in the Erbacce Poetry Prize (United Kingdom), winner of the 35th Moon Prize (Writing in a Woman's Voice: USA), first runner up in the The DNA-OoP Short Story Contest (2016, India), second prize in the India Currents Katha Short Story Contest (2016, U.S.), first prize in the Anam Cara Short Fiction Competition (2012, Ireland), longlist in the Bridport Poetry Prize (2006, United Kingdom), and finalist in the Aesthetica Poetry Contest (2010, United Kingdom). Shikhandin’s prose and poetry have been widely published in India and abroad in online and print journals and anthologies. Her speculative novella, The Woman on the Red Oxide Floor, is forthcoming in 2023–2024.
Katarina Xóchitl Vargas
“The Ills of Invasion”
There are 25 million
slaughtered ancestors in my genes.
When the withering starts
they spill into my veins all at once:
ancient danzantes with phantom limbs—
feet stomping, ankles rattling,
reawakening my Earth with ayoyotes
Katarina Xóchitl Vargas (she/her) is an emerging Xicana poet, originally from Mexico. After her family moved to the U.S., she began composing poems to process alienation. A dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico, today she writes resistance poetry and lives on occupied Tsenacommacah territory where she is working on her first chapbook. Katarina is the first-place recipient of the inaugural Mulberry Literary Fresh Voices Award. Her poems first appeared in Somos en escrito: The Latino Literary Online Magazine, Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal, The Acentos Review, Penumbra, and Barrio Panther. Follow her on Instagram @Cantos_de_Xochitl.
Ann Weil
“The Unraveling”
. . . .I still feel
the warmth of his arms, the heat between us
that made three new lives, the burning gut that knows
the pain of shared complicity. Love can melt
even as our fingers grasp for it.
Ann Weil writes in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and on a boat off Snipe’s Point Sandbar, in Key West, Florida. Her most recent work appears in Maudlin House, Pedestal Magazine, DMQ Review, 3Elements Review, The Shore, and New World Writing Quarterly. Her chapbook, Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman, published by Yellow Arrow Publishing, debuted in April 2023. See more of her work at annweilpoetry.com.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we SPARK and sparkle this year: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
What Ignites Your Spark? The Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK Online Series Begins
By Siobhan McKenna
Welcome to the second annual release of Yellow Arrow Vignette, Yellow Arrow Publishing’s online creative nonfiction and poetry series. For this issue, we aligned with our 2023 yearly value and chose the theme of SPARK. We will publish the SPARK pieces on Mondays and Wednesdays from today through September 11, ending with a reading from our 2023 Vignette authors on September 13 at 8:00 p.m. EST.
yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/spark-2023
As writers it can be difficult to articulate the reasons for creating a word map to navigate the beauty, guilt, loss, and nuance in this world. There are writers who need to write even though it is a challenging, arduous process and there are writers who easily sit down in front of the page daily to unpack their thoughts. I fall somewhere in between . . . although more often on the scale of procrastination until the words burst through my sweaty and overly caffeinated fingertips in a large swell and then I edit and edit. And edit again.
Whichever writer you are, you are a writer.
This mantra was instilled in me by one of my favorite writers, Laurel Braitman. Over the last few years, I’ve participated in several of her writing workshops which she would often begin by reminding everyone that it didn’t matter if we had written last year or that morning. If we had shown up to write, we were writers.
This sentiment resonates with me as someone who doesn’t feel called to write every day and yet, when I do find myself needing to untangle my thoughts through words—everything else falls away. Laurel’s reminder also helps soften the nagging voice that says: you are not writing, submitting, editing enough.
These thoughts are exhausting and don’t help me write more. Don’t we already live with enough self-judgment? Let’s not add this judgment to our writing and instead simply bask in the pleasure of ideas that we weaved together and applaud those who spun an image depicting that feeling we could not communicate.
These past few months, I’ve been harnessing my SPARK for writing by taking in the words of other writers—mainly women (although David Sedaris did slip in quite often). I sped through memoir after memoir: Laurel Braitman, Ashley C. Ford, Brandi Carlile, and Stephanie Foo; and realized I was in a state of seeking. Seeking inspiration on how to write well, but mostly seeking to remember that these contemporary women had celebrated great joys and tremendous losses and survived; were still surviving.
Outside the page, I also found inspiration on my commute through New York City’s boroughs; from stumbling upon tulip laden pocket parks to watching in amazement as a little girl slumbered soundly against her father’s shoulder on the subway. The car lurched and screeched, still her eyes never fluttered. Even now, there’s a poem unfurling in my synapses about her. About that beautiful sleep, that trust.
During this time, I didn’t do as much writing as I wanted. Perhaps, that’s always the case? And yet, I don’t feel as guilty as I usually do when this happens. Instead, I feel like this phase of soaking in and seeking inspiration was exactly what I needed to write.
Since leaving New York City for my next travel nurse assignment, lines and ideas have been emerging in the quieter moments of my day. As I was walking home along the Puget Sound in my current city of Seattle, the sky pink and the leaves breathing, the hazy outline of a poem formed in my head. And yesterday, a glorious string of words sat next to each other in an email; I scribbled them on a sticky note as a title for an essay.
In this summer’s Vignette, the theme SPARK takes on a variety of forms from the literal to the meta. C.D. Jones’s poem “this time machine” recalls the tangible heat and heartache of young love while Veronica Wasson’s essay “On Clothing (Five Pieces)” ponders how clothes were the catalyst needed for her to explore her authentic self.
Some of the Vignette writers use the theme of SPARK to explore the influences in their lives that have ignited their creative pursuits. Angela Acosta praises poets Concha Urquiza and Ernestina de Champourcín among others as a guiding life force in her poem “A Centennial for Herstory,” and in “To be Frank (or Why I Write),” Laurel Maxwell invokes the sentiments of Maya Angelou and Virginia Woolf as she deliberates on why writing is her creative medium.
You’ll also discover meditations on the necessity (and struggle) to write from authors such as Marisa Victoria Gedgaudas in her poem “Colygraphia”:
I must try to find the words. I must keep this promise to myself. I must pay the debt even if there is no one coming to collect it.
And writers who discuss the “unseen cloud” and “electric current” that guides our writing such as in “Zeitgeist,” a poem by Elyse Welles that kickstarts our series:
It taps us on our shoulder
Zaps us in our dreams and waking thoughts
It asks us,
“does this fit?”
Fit what? It’s baseless needs and wants.”
Thank you to all the writers who followed that glimmer of inspiration and kept their promises to write. I am amazed by the breadth of our collection and hope that a SPARK ignites in you as you read each published piece.
Thank you, Kapua Iao, Editor-In-Chief, and Annie Marhefka, Executive Director, for supporting me throughout this series. Thank you also to the Yellow Arrow Publishing board for their continued support on this endeavor. Thank you also to our wonderful editorial associates, readers, and interns: Sydney Alexander, Cecilia Caldwell, Angela Firman, Meg Gamble, Melissa Nunez, Mickey Revenaugh, Beck Snyder, and Andrea Stennett. These folks diligently read through submissions, worked on edits, and contributed amazing feedback for every single submission we received! Finally, thank you to every writer who submitted to the series and gave us the opportunity to read a slice of your story. We are delighted. We are grateful.
Since January 2020, Siobhan McKenna has worked for Yellow Arrow as an editorial associate and interviewer, among many other roles. She is now the Vignette Managing Editor. Siobhan earned her bachelor’s degree in creative writing and biology from Loyola University Maryland and a master’s degree in nursing from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her work at Yellow Arrow, Siobhan is a travel nurse and is currently located in Seattle, Washington. Her writing can be found in Canthius, Intima, throughout the Yellow Arrow blog, and with Next Level Nursing.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we SPARK and sparkle this year: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Igniting a SPARK: Yellow Arrow Vignette Submissions Now Open
By Siobhan McKenna
Welcome to the first day of open submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette! Now in its second season, Yellow Arrow Vignette is an online creative nonfiction and poetry series developed to better feature women-identifying writers and share their voices beyond Yellow Arrow Journal and our single-author and collaborative publications. In 2022, the inaugural season of Vignette on the theme AWAKEN, authors meditated on the spaces where the unknown comes into light. The poetry and prose published last July through to September awakened us to the shape our love can take for a parent who we didn’t see eye to eye with, the healing power of carrying on ancestors’ legacy long suppressed by colonialism, and the beauty in the “glowing yolk” of a sunset as it slides into the ocean among many other stories.
This year, submissions for Vignette are open from May 1 to 31 and will align with the 2023 Yellow Arrow yearly value: SPARK.
SPARK
: to set off in a burst of activity
: someone or something that ignites an idea
The German novelist and philosopher, Thomas Mann said, “If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.”
What notion or thought has you reaching for your pen or keyboard?
How do you keep that idea or spark lit when faced with interruptions that tell us creative work is frivolous or a luxury rather than a necessity?
From whom or what do you harness your inspiration to maintain your spark? In strangers on city sidewalks, blooming sculpture gardens, daily WORDLE rituals, in the words of fellow writers or ?
Through the guiding theme of SPARK, we invite you to reflect on what ignites your creativity and how you see that reflected back as you move throughout your daily life.
After assembling a collection about awakening, I love that SPARK is our 2023 yearly and Vignette theme as it is a natural next step. An awareness can only lead to a certain point; then there must be an inciting action to propel an idea into being. Yellow Arrow board president, Mickey Revenaugh, spoke of a spark earlier this year as “a precondition, necessary but not sufficient.” When an idea arrives, sparks are vital—they are the lifeblood for creativity. Yet, sparks sometimes fade when it comes to the nitty-gritty, the long hours that must be undertaken in order to have an idea come to fruition. It is then, within the drudgery of labor, when faced with self-doubt and fear (who even wants to hear what I have to say?), that it is essential to remember the spark that drove you to begin your journey.
I’m also fond of SPARK because of the word’s sensory associations. When I think of a spark, I hear the sound of July nights when the fizzing hum of a lit firework shoots into the sky and erupts with a loud crack. I feel the heat on my fingertips from the fleeting flame of a matchstick. I see the pyrotechnic emissions from a sparkler marking the end of a wedding reception and smell the smoky mix of burnt residue rising into the air. I’m just not sure of what a spark tastes like—although Pop Rocks, the fruity flavored popping candy, could be similar to tasting a spark: a frenetic tap dancing on my tastebuds. Yes, perhaps that’s it.
No matter what you conjure when you think of SPARK, I hope you are encouraged to find that impulse behind your work and submit to Vignette! With the pieces in this issue, we want to nudge each other into remembering the reasons for crafting emotions from letters and symbols; the motivation for sharing a slice of worldview that is wildly different from another’s and still, resonates in our core.
For Yellow Arrow Vignette 2023, we are looking for creative nonfiction and poetry by writers who identify as women on the theme of SPARK. Submissions can be in any language as long as an English translation accompanies them. For more information regarding submission guidelines and how to submit, please visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions. Make sure to read the guidelines carefully before submitting. If you have any questions, send them to submissions@yellowarrowpublishing.com. Vignette will publish two pieces each week beginning on July 3 and ending with our authors coming together for a reading on September 6.
We look forward to reading the submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette and sharing these stories with you. Since its founding in 2016, Yellow Arrow has worked tirelessly to make an impact on the local and global community by advocating for writers that identify as women. Yellow Arrow proudly represents the voices of women from around the globe. Creating diversity in the literary world and providing a safe space is deeply important. Every writer has a story to tell, every story is worth telling.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we SPARK and sparkle this year: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Find Your Awakening: The Yellow Arrow Vignette AWAKEN Online Series Begins
By Siobhan McKenna
Welcome to the release of Yellow Arrow Publishing’s online series, Yellow Arrow Vignette. For our first issue we chose the theme of AWAKEN, our 2022 yearly value. We will publish the chosen AWAKEN pieces on Mondays and Wednesdays from today through September 5, ending with a heartfelt reading from our 2022 Vignette authors on September 7 at 8pm EST.
The theme AWAKEN had been on my mind frequently over the last four weeks as I’ve literally awakened each week in a different bed: an airbed in a friend’s townhouse in West Seattle, the guest mattress of my sister’s house in Jacksonville, Florida, the king-sized bed of an Airbnb on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and my childhood twin at my parent’s house in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
These various awakenings were necessary to attend several professional and family obligations between my partner and I, and although tiring at times, mainly I found myself exhilarated by the sensory experiences that accompanied waking up in a new place. I was awoken by the whimpering of my sister’s dog, a sweet Pitbull-Lab mix, as she pawed at the door and begged to snuggle in the early hours of the morning; the rumble of Lower East Side construction crews at work on the interminable projects of the city; and the rustle of deciduous leaves in a suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood as I left the sanctity of sleep and crossed the threshold into consciousness. These unconventional alarm clocks were a refreshing change to soothe my mind as often, I’ve felt a sense of dread when waking up in the morning. Sometimes when rousing for the day, the feeling of already being behind rushes in before the day has even started. Or simply, I am still tired, and sleep, precious sleep, is beckoning me back to the pillow.
As I moved from place to place, I realized that diversifying my surroundings helped me greet the day more energized as I was lured by the promise of experiencing for a few days how the “the other” lives, commutes, encounters nature, and is encapsulated by architecture. In Manhattan, I awoke and walked Second Avenue along city parks and graffiti-donned alleyways, with other millennials scrambling for coffee and free Wi-Fi. In Florida, my partner and I would ride beach cruisers after working from home to the sandy shores three blocks east to cool off in the Atlantic.
The constant movement stirred in me both the desire to create community and the hunger to continue jumping into the flow of another’s daily routine. For now, I need to keep channeling the traveler’s mindset as over the next six days I’ll be waking up in a different locale every day (because weekly changes weren’t enough of a challenge).
As this piece is published, I am in Canada driving to the northeast end of Vancouver Island. Once there, I’ll board a ferry to the border of British Columbia and Alaska and then hop on the Alaska-Canadian highway, the ALCAN, and start the 30+ hour drive to Anchorage, Alaska.
This journey to Alaska is one that I’ve been planning for a few years now. It started as a seed when I began travel nursing and realized the breadth of places I could explore. I was attracted to the land of the midnight sun for the unknown it possessed. The uninhabited lands, the frigid temperatures, and the native animals, but also the people. Through my travels, I have recognized that by living—not simply visiting—I can gain access to parts of another’s life that may go unnoticed when traveling as a tourist. I have appreciated that by simply being with others and understanding their histories, downfalls, and triumphs, we gain empathy. That for me meant experiencing, in flesh and blood, the 49th U.S. state.
I kept waiting for Alaska to work itself out for me. I applied to several jobs last year without hearing anything and then again, this year, I waited for the perfect travel nursing job to emerge. It didn’t happen. At first, I saw these rejections and “clung to that crag” of the known that Shikhandin, our first poet in the series whose work you will read today, writes about in “Epiphany.” I did not want to let go of the crag for fear of disappointment and for fear of not conforming to perceived social expectations. But, unlike last year, when I met a roadblock and decided fate wanted me elsewhere, this year, I chose to look beyond the standard contracts and assembled a hodgepodge of jobs that would keep me sustained when I lived in Anchorage. I began to release my “jam-jarred dream” that Shikhandin begs us to unleash.
While not all of us will have an awakening (or a desire, for that matter) to live in Alaska, awakenings arrive in countless forms. In this series, you will read about awakenings that come in the form of closure, death, the end of a marriage, the beginning of believing in yourself, acknowledging climate change, and so much more. Through these vignettes, our authors explore the thresholds where the unknown comes into light, an often vague and hazy transitional space that simultaneously intimidates and relieves our souls. As you travel alongside our authors, I hope that you can add these tender, joyous, and inspiring awakenings to the well of human experiences that each one of us holds in our core so that on days when we can’t recognize the other as ourselves, we may remember the universality of the human condition.
I am delighted with the themes that we explore in this series. Whether it’s spending a few months in unknown-to-you expanses or finding the courage to approach a new day with optimism, I hope this series awakens you to a “jam-jarred dream” that is desperate for you to release.
Thank you, Kapua Iao, our Editor-In-Chief, and Annie Marhefka, our Executive Director, for listening to my original pitch for an online publication and for helping me create this illuminating series. Thank you to the Yellow Arrow Publishing Board for their support on this endeavor. Thank you also to our wonderful editorial associate, Angela Firman, and the Yellow Arrow summer interns, Veronica Salib and Sydney Alexander, for diligently working on the edits and promotional material, and to our readers, Kapua, Annie, Angela, Veronica, and Sydney, along with board members Sara Palmer, Jessica Gregg, and Gina Strauss, and staff members Lisa Roscoe, Nicky Ruddell, and Andrea Stennett, who took the time to reflect on the over one hundred submissions we received. Thank you to everyone who submitted to the series and gave us the opportunity to read, commiserate, and empathize. We are also very grateful to Alex Marhefka for working on the website with us, helping us to explore a new boundary to share women’s voices. Finally, thank you to our writers who allowed us to find a home for their stories on our site. We are humbled.
Since January 2020, Siobhan McKenna has worked tirelessly for Yellow Arrow as an editorial associate and interviewer, among many other roles. She is now the Vignette Managing Editor. Siobhan earned her bachelor’s degree in creative writing and biology from Loyola University Maryland and a master’s degree in nursing from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her work at Yellow Arrow, Siobhan is an ICU travel nurse and is currently located in Seattle, Washington. Her writing can be found throughout the Yellow Arrow blog, within our EMERGE zine, and with Next Level Nursing.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Yellow Arrow recently revamped and restructured its Yellow Arrow Journal subscription plan to include two levels. Do you think you are an Avid Reader or a Literary Lover? Find out more about the discounts and goodies involved at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/yellow-arrow-journal-subscription.
You can support us as we AWAKEN in a variety of ways: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 102, Glen Arm, MD 21057). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.
Yellow Arrow Vignette Submissions are Now Open!
Today marks the first day of May and with that the opening of submissions for the inaugural issue of Yellow Arrow Vignette—Yellow Arrow’s new online creative nonfiction and poetry series. As a team we settled on the name “vignette” or “little vine” in French because in literature vignettes are described as literary sketches—highly detailed snapshots. In a vignette there may be a bit of dialogue or plot, but the senses are heightened to focus on the emotions and smallest elements of a scene.
Submissions to the the first issue of Vignette are open from May 1 to 31 on the 2022 Yellow Arrow yearly theme AWAKEN:
: to make someone or something aware
: to awake, become aroused or conscious
Aligned with the notion of pausing to observe the details, choosing AWAKEN as this year’s Vignette theme was fitting because to truly be awake means to be conscious of your surroundings. To be awake necessitates acknowledging the spectrum of emotions: to savor the sliver of morning light warming your foot as you wait for your coffee to brew, to feel the low hum of the traffic while scrubbing the dishes, or to curl up with your coziest blanket and embrace the pain. With the stories that come from the Vignette, we hope to paint a feeling of interconnectedness by giving our readers a window into brief, but poignant moments of awakening.
Although Yellow Arrow is planted and cultivated in Baltimore, Maryland—also home to our executive editor, Annie Marhefka—Yellow Arrow’s roots extend to Bosnia where our founder, Gwen Van Velsor, sends love and support; to the streets of Montréal and soils of Greece where our editor-in-chief, Kapua Iao, splits her time; to wherever Vignette’s Managing Editor Siobhan McKenna calls home as a traveling nurse, currently in Seattle, Washington, but soon Alaska; and to numerous other cities and localities that our community calls home. By publishing Vignette online, we look to expand our community’s reach even further by making the words of our writers easily accessible. By making the voices of women heard even more.
For Vignette, we are looking for creative nonfiction and poetry by writers/artists that identify as women on the theme of AWAKEN. Submissions can be in any language as long as an English translation accompanies them. For more information regarding submission guidelines and how to submit, please visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/vignette/submissions. Please read our guidelines carefully before submitting. Vignette will begin its release in July 2022.
Through Yellow Arrow Vignette we will increase the number of stories that we publish annually furthering our desire to provide a platform for voices that may otherwise not be heard. Yellow Arrow Publishing may be a small press but like a small vine steadily moving toward the sun, we hope that the Yellow Arrow Vignette will grow our mission of sharing captivating stories from an array of backgrounds.
We look forward to reading the submissions for Yellow Arrow Vignette and sharing these stories with you. Since its founding in 2016, Yellow Arrow has worked tirelessly to make an impact on the local and global community by advocating for writers that identify as women. Yellow Arrow proudly represents the voices of women from around the globe. Creating diversity in the literary world and providing a safe space is deeply important. Every writer has a story to tell, every story is worth telling.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.
You can support us as we AWAKEN in a variety of ways: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 102, Glen Arm, MD 21057). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.