Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog

Annie Marhefka 7/31/23 Annie Marhefka 7/31/23

Meet the 2023 Yellow Arrow Publishing Writers-in-Residence

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Since 2019, Yellow Arrow Publishing has been proud to offer a residency program that enables us to support, uplift, and amplify the voices of women-identifying writers residing in the Baltimore area. We continue to evolve the program and are delighted to share our 2023 writers-in-residence with our community.

First, a note of thanks. As our programs and community continue to grow, we consider our team tremendously fortunate to have received such a diverse and talented group of applicants. We are reminded again of the passion and storytelling that surrounds and charms us. Our deepest gratitude to all those who applied or took this opportunity to learn more about Yellow Arrow.

For 2023, we are thrilled that Bird in Hand café and bookstore is partnering with us to provide an inspiring location from which our writers can work at their craft! Bird in Hand has provided Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood the perfect blend of coffee, books, and community since 2016.

Please join us in congratulating our 2023 writers-in-residence: Kat Scott and Tramaine Suubi.

Kat Scott is an MFA student at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and holds a Master of Arts from Indiana University. As a writer, Kat likes to explore the places where meetings occur, between humans, animals, nature, etc. In some small way, she hopes to open a questioning of the boundaries we place that lead to othering, embracing instead the idea of a congeries. Kat lives in Remington and works as an assistant editor for The Hopkins Review.

Kat will be the Writer-in-Residence for August and September.

Tramaine Suubi is a multilingual Bantu artist who was born by the Nile River and raised by the Potomac River. They earned an MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Their poems live in Solstice Literary Magazine, Prompt Press, Protest Through Poetry, Plantin Magazine, Kiwi Collective Magazine, and other spaces. They were a contributor at the Tin House Summer Workshop and they are officially represented by the Creative Arts Agency. Their forthcoming book debut will be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Tramaine is in love with all things water.

Tramaine will be the writer-in-residence for October and November.

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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.

Kapua Iao 5/16/23 Kapua Iao 5/16/23

Immersion in the Arts: Yellow Arrow Publishing Writers-in-Residence 2023

Since 2019, Yellow Arrow Publishing has been proud to offer a residency program that enables us to support, uplift, and amplify the voices of women-identifying writers residing in the Baltimore area. We are excited to announce the transformations to our 2023 Writers-in-Residence program. Applications are open June 1-30.

Residency programs are appealing to writers for many reasons, but some of the highlights are often the freedom from distractions offered, additional support in the way of mentorship or community resources, and the opportunity to immerse yourself in an artistic atmosphere, sharing and exploring with other creatives while you work at your craft. As writers, we dream of ideal writing Edens: a secluded cabin in the woods, a rocking chair on a wraparound porch at an old farmhouse, a writing desk surrounded by shelves packed full of vintage classics. A residency is sometimes viewed as an escape, a way to step away from our lives and immerse ourselves in nothing but the writing.

In reality though, we often find such ventures logistically challenging. Whatever our daily burdens may be—professional occupations, caregiving, busy schedules, financial obligations—it’s tough to convince ourselves that making time and space for our writing is what’s best for those around us. How can we step away, entirely, from our lives for days or weeks at a time? How can we achieve complete immersion?

Yellow Arrow began its Writers-in-Residence program for just this reason. We have always emphasized that our focus is around supporting and empowering emerging writers, but what is an emerging writer? To us, it is the writer who, when we meet you at a book festival and ask, “Are you a writer?” your response is, “Well, I write. I’m not sure I would call myself a writer.” An emerging writer is someone who has maybe been published, but is still working their way into the literary world. An emerging writer is someone who isn’t making a living on their writing in a way that affords them the opportunity to step away for a lengthy period of time. An emerging writer is someone who considers writing a passion, a vocation, a calling.

With this focus on emerging writers, we have reimagined our residency program to provide you with all the things an emerging writer should have without the burden of leaving home: a place free from the distractions of daily life to write, a community of resources and fellow creatives to support you, and an immersion in the vibrant Baltimore arts scene.

Yellow Arrow Publishing is thrilled to announce our Writers-in-Residence program for 2023. One writer will serve as a writer-in-residence for the months of August and September, and another will take residency for the months of October and November. This year, thanks to a partnership with Bird in Hand Café, our residences will have a space to write surrounded by books (and coffee!). Bird in Hand is providing both of our 2023 writers-in-residence a $200 gift card to provide sustenance while writing in the Charles Village bookstore and café. In addition, Yellow Arrow is granting the writers a $200 stipend to use toward expenses—childcare, transportation, writing supplies—whatever your needs are. We’ve also added in free Yellow Arrow writing workshops during the course of your residency. And we will continue to advocate for our writers-in-residence by doing all we can to amplify their voices and support their creative endeavors.

Our residency is not an escape, but it could be the opposite. It could be an arrival. The spark to start the fire within.

There is no application fee. No genre limitations. All Baltimore-area writers who identify as women are encouraged to apply. Questions? Email admin@yellowarrowpublishing.com. View the full residency program description here.

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Kapua Iao 9/6/22 Kapua Iao 9/6/22

The Fact of Living in a Place: I (want to) love you, Baltimore publication release

Yellow Arrow Publishing announces the release of our latest publication, I (want to) love you, Baltimore, by the Yellow Arrow 2022 Writers-in-Residence: Arao Ameny, Amy L. Bernstein, Catrice Greer, and Matilda Young. Since its establishment in 2016, Yellow Arrow has devoted its efforts to advocate for all women writers through inclusion in the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal as well as single- and multi-author publications, and by providing strong author support, writing workshops, and volunteering opportunities. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting the residents in all their writing and publishing endeavors.

I (want to) love you, Baltimore is now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore as a paperback and a PDF. A heartfelt thanks to Arao, Amy, Catrice, and Matilda for going on this journey with us. Visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/writerinresidence-program to learn more about the 2022 writers-in-residence.

Below, Yellow Arrow Executive Director Annie Marhefka, who accompanied the residents on their journey, dives deeper into what it means to be a Yellow Arrow resident and what it means to create and compile a publication as a group.

By Annie Marhefka

As writers, we like to seek out opportunities to explore our craft in a way that grounds us in place. Writing retreats are places you escape to in order to write, writing fellowships award you funds to write wherever you want, and writing residencies offer you a place to go to dedicate time to the pursuit of writing. A residency by definition is “the fact of living in a place.” Residency programs are meant to foster community among its participants. This year at Yellow Arrow Publishing, we decided to have a virtual writing residency for Baltimore residents, a thing that is at odds with itself, a thing that should not even exist.

Founder Gwen Van Velsor initially designed yellow Arrow’s residency program to accommodate emerging writers who could not spend weeks or months in a location far removed from where their obligations resided. The original residency was flexible—a place, the Yellow Arrow House, you could go to at hours of your own choosing, a space to call your own, for the sole purpose of writing. But in 2020 as we all know, our shared physical spaces became places where disease could spread rather than places where we could find community. In fact, my introduction to Yellow Arrow was through its residency program during this time; mine began in March of 2020. As a new mother who had quickly found it impossible to write, even with childcare, in my own noisy home, I was ecstatic to have been awarded a residency with Yellow Arrow. I hired a nanny to watch my child a few afternoons each week and headed off to my new writing space in Highlandtown.

The writing space was intimate—a small wooden desk in a corner by two windows that looked out over the intersection of South Conkling and Bank streets. Despite its plainness, it was apparent that someone [Gwen] had taken care to make the space feel cozy, safe, inspiring. One window was adorned with a large paper cutout of a woman writing. The silhouette cast a feminine shadow across the room when the sun peeked over the brick building across the street. An empty notebook whose cover was decorated with a picture of the Baltimore skyline laid upon the desk, along with a basket of pens, a vase of yellow flowers, and a yellow coffee mug.

While I had sought out the writing residency to escape others, to find solace in a place where I was isolated, it struck me once I arrived that the thing about the space that made it conducive to writing was the presence of other writers in the room. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a classic green chalkboard easel. On it, Gwen had drawn a swirly yellow arrow and written this quote by Emily Kamminga, a contributor to Yellow Arrow Journal, COURAGE (Vol. III):

On that first day, I wrote 3,000 words—almost an entire chapter for my work-in-progress, a memoir about my relationship with my late mother. I was elated. Then, several days later, I penned an article about the world shutting down for I Heart Highlandtown’s website. It is stunning to read that back to myself now—how I thought of it as temporary, how I thought of the pandemic story having an ending. Fast forward to 2021, when I took on the role of executive director of Yellow Arrow and had to re-envision how we would (how we could) host programs, like the writing residency, without a physical space. When our mission was centered around building community space for emerging writers and creatives, how could I create a community virtual space that was as sacred and nurturing to the soul as the space Gwen had created for me?

I knew immediately that the residency program could not be done in isolation in this way. We were all already isolating, physically; I could not then expect writers to pursue their creative endeavors alone in their rooms. They needed a safe zone. They needed a sanctuary. They needed a place—even if it was not a real, tangible location. We decided to create a virtual cohort of writers and the writers had to be in Baltimore. Even though they may never meet in person, they needed to have place in common. Places can amplify our differences and our commonalities; they can separate us, unite us, bond us. And Baltimore is where Yellow Arrow’s roots are, and where my roots are, so Charm City would be a requirement.

The four writers we selected, Arao, Amy, Catrice, and Matilda, submitted stunning portfolios of work, and would represent different facets of Baltimore—different neighborhoods, different experiences, different perspectives. My intention was to meet monthly with the four writers and check on their progress, as I did not want to overburden them in an already over-burdensome online landscape with more Zoom calls, but I also intended to let the writers guide me in how I facilitated the program. In our first meeting, they all agreed they preferred to meet weekly, and so that became the new plan. For several months, we met on Zoom and most days, we started our conversations with how everyone was doing personally. Sometimes, we let those check-ins drive our entire meeting space. Sometimes they needed to. We talked about our losses, our writing inspirations, and sometimes our inability to feel inspired at that moment.

But mostly, the writers shared their words. Arao, Amy, Catrice, and Matilda put their full selves forward throughout their residency program. The irony of having a virtual residency grounded in Baltimore was that it was not grounded in any place at all. For each Zoom call, we clicked on a web link, adjusted our lighting, and muted ourselves when we weren’t talking. Some of us even had faux backgrounds that blurred when we shifted too quickly to the left, and here we were talking about the city that surrounded us, and our relationship to it without really being in it together.

The only rule I had given them was that the writing had to incorporate Baltimore in some way—as setting, as background, as character. They drafted poems and read them aloud with a vulnerability that only a writer with a half-finished first draft fully understands. We sent clapping emojis and typed out lines that stood out to us in the chat with exclamation marks to convey how much the words impacted us, and we went off mute to cheer and cry and say, “Thank you for sharing that with us.”

Most importantly, we created a beautiful publication out of the residency program, now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore as a paperback and a PDF. You can also search for I (want to) love you, Baltimore wherever you purchase your books including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. To learn more about the residents, check out our residents’ blog posts here.

I know that you, as a reader, will feel rooted in the place that inspired these beautiful poems: our Baltimore. And I know that you, as a reader, will be as thankful as I am that these writers shared their stories with us. They created for each other what I had only hoped to replicate from that tiny little writing studio in Highlandtown: the fact of living in a place, together.

Annie Marhefka is a writer and publishing professional in Baltimore. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have been published by Hobart, Literary Mama, Pithead Chapel, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer, and others. Annie is the Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing and is working on a memoir about mother/daughter relationships. Annie spent the majority of her career as an executive in human resources in the ed-tech industry before switching paths to focus on motherhood and creative writing. When she’s not writing or wrangling her children, she likes to spend her time on the Chesapeake Bay and other bodies of water. You can find Annie’s writing on Instagram @anniemarhefka, Twitter @charmcityannie, and at anniemarhefka.com.

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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. 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.

Kapua Iao 5/18/22 Kapua Iao 5/18/22

Confessions of an Unschooled Poet: Learning that Some Rules are Meant to be Broken

By Amy L. Bernstein

I first composed a poem as an adult around 1986. I read it out loud to my boyfriend at the time, my whole body shaking. Sharing an original poem handwritten on a scrap of notepaper, after several hasty drafts, seemed like a subversive act. I had never felt more vulnerable or exposed than when reading those lines.

That poem did not survive and neither did the relationship. All I can recall (about the poem, not the guy) is that I used metaphors involving textiles to express something about the act of creative writing itself. I think the last line went something like, “In the end, the poem sews itself.”

After that little experiment, I did not write another poem until early in 2019—three decades on. I didn’t know how. I didn’t think I should. I didn’t feel qualified. I assumed I couldn’t simply barge into the world of poets and poetry and find a berth.

After all, as an English literature major in college, I had read tons of so-called classic fiction, from Shakespeare and Chaucer to Thackeray and Eliot. But I did not take a single poetry class (if you exclude Shakespeare) and I did not read poetry for pleasure.

Poetry struck me as an entirely separate branch of literature, off in its own corner, speaking to the cognoscenti. Either the cryptic lines yielded up their secret messages to you—invited you to decode their meaning—or they didn’t. Poetry had rules! So many rules! I knew how to write topic sentences and coherent paragraphs; I knew how to develop and support a thesis statement.

But poems snaked along the page like hieroglyphics, and I lacked the knowledge to decipher or unpack them. I didn’t know a sestina from a villanelle. I figured if I wasn’t willing to study the rules, then I couldn’t (and perhaps, shouldn’t) attempt any of the forms.

Which is not to say that I was totally immune to all of poetry’s seductive charms.

There were moments over the years when a poem (mainly from the traditional Eurocentric canon I was exposed to) briefly turned my head. “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness . . .). T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo.). Snippets of Walt Whitman (I sing the body electric—a great line in an otherwise not-so-great piece). Amiri Baraka’s chilling, incantatory “Somebody Blew Up America” (who WHO WHO . . .).

But I continued, for the most part, to hold poetry at arm’s length. I left the form to those who were perhaps more patient, more intuitive, or maybe just smarter, than I.

Then came 2019 and something shifted. Was the shift in me, as a writer finding my voice in different forms (playwrighting, novels, essays)? Was the shift occurring in the wider world, given rising levels of injustice, civil unrest, uncivil discourse? I believe it was both.

I sat down at my computer one day four years ago and recognized that a poem was the only form adequate to expressing what I needed to say, just then. I was in the grip of a mild depression, feeling raw—and feeling too much.

Paradoxically, poetry’s stringent economy of language is well suited to big emotions. Compression of form yields expansion of expression.

My subconscious must have understood that premise when I began writing poetry. I dove in because I wanted to, needed to. I cast aside self-conscious concerns about not knowing what I was doing. I wouldn’t let my lack of formal mastery get in the way of what I wanted to say.

First lines from a first poem:

Nothing is wrong with you / You are a glassine harbor on a windless day.

I wrote only free verse from then on (and still do), on the theory that I’m not equipped to compose in more formal forms. I still don’t know a sestina from a villanelle, but so what?

Now, I love making more with less; scraping words away until only the necessary ones remain; finding precisely the right metaphor to create both image and feeling. I love the look of a completed poem on the page, how the ragged lines and unpredictable line groupings keep your eyes moving and the rhythms flowing.

I love how a poem can’t be anything other than itself. Form follows function.

I’m still an uneducated poet. I don’t routinely read poetry, though I do listen to it on a semi-regular basis. I don’t expect I’ll ever grasp more about poetry as an art form than my own practice teaches me.

While others may fault me for my attitude, I’m okay with it. Writers should follow their muses, wherever they lead—or don’t lead.

The lesson I’ve learned from my late lurch into poetry, which I’d like to share with writers everywhere, is that you should always allow your creative heart to be your guide. There is no art form that is off-limits; no door that is closed to you; no club to which you may not belong as a writer, when it comes to the marriage of form and subject matter.

Even though I still hesitate to call myself a “poet,” I fully embrace the act of writing poetry. After all, the label is not what matters. In the end, it’s all about the work you create and share, in any form you dream up. Honor your calling, no matter what it’s called.

Amy L. Bernstein writes for the page, the stage, and forms in between. Her novels include The Potrero Complex, The Nighthawkers, Dreams of Song Times, and Fran, The Second Time Around. Amy’s poetry leans heavily on free-form prose poems that address psychological and political states of mind. Amy is an award-winning journalist, playwright, and certified nonfiction book coach.

Visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.

Kapua Iao 5/11/22 Kapua Iao 5/11/22

Everything is Practice

By Matilda Young

The great Brazilian soccer player Pele said, “Everything is practice.”

As both a writer and soccer nerd, this quote is dear to me. Over the years, it has come to mean different things: how honing a skill requires us to put the hours in, how every moment is an opportunity to learn.

These days, it helps to take some of the pressure off. When I’m out here taking a stab at a poem or an essay or a story, I’m just kicking the ball around, seeing what feels right, finessing my footwork.

Over the past four years, I’ve done my own version of NaNoWriMo, attempting to write a poem a day during April. I started out by participating in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project in April 2019. In the years since, I’ve been doing it on my own.

Well, not really on my own. In fact, the best part of the practice has been doing it alongside other writers. Every year, I invite writers I know to join me in a series of messy Google Docs, one per week(ish). It’s an open invitation for folks to forward along to others—my view is the more the merrier!—which has meant I get to write alongside some tremendous writers I’ve never had the pleasure to meet except on the page.

Every day, I’ll put a prompt in the Google Doc that people can respond to (or not). People can put their drafts in the Doc (or not). People can write every day or write whenever it makes sense for them.

It is such a joy to read what folks are writing throughout the month and to see what they create (we have some folks who are also visual artists). Everyone’s style is so different, and no one tackles the prompt in the same way. I am blown away by everyone’s talent, by these wonderful glimpses I get into their writing lives.

And especially during the pandemic, getting to be in community with these writers has been a lifeline. That first April, in 2020, when we were all so cut off from the world and from each other, writing together gave me a glimmer of hope.

This poem a day practice also paradoxically takes the pressure off for me. I can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The poem doesn’t have to be something that’s publishable or finished or more than a few scraps of lines; it just has to exist.

I haven’t figured out a way to carry this daily practice beyond April. I don’t know if I ever will. And that’s OK—I’m still practicing.

Everything is practice. For me, this is practice in the spiritual sense, too. Writing together every April reminds me why I love writing, why I love writers. And I think everyone who loves writing is a writer. Everyone who loves language is a writer. Everyone with a truth they need to put into words is a writer. And in some small way, in these Google Docs, I get to be part of a jam band of folks who are sharing their truth with the world.

I hope that maybe you and your friends, and fellow writers not yet friends, will give this a shot and make it your own. It doesn’t have to be April. The prompts don’t have to be longer than one word (cardinal, crunch, clasp). But it may be a practice that you will find meaningful.

If not, that’s OK, too! We’re just out here figuring out what feels right for us, finessing our footwork, kicking the ball around.

“In Gratitude For Google Docs – April 2021”

This morning, I tried a new trick – wet rubber

glove across the blanket bringing away layers

of cat fur from four months of napping,

heavy battering even with the blanket surface

rotated in sections like crops. And it worked!

Thank you to the home ec sages of the internet

for this lesson, and who helped us get through

this past year of seeing what works with what we have:

frugal recipe hacks for pantry clean outs, the fruit

fly traps in soda bottles, baking soda and vinegar

for everything, crumble recipes I scanned

and riffed from like Beaker the science muppet

going rogue. And thank you to the free history

podcasts R & I listened to while he puzzled

& I colored. Thank you to the Pratt Library

for the audio book of Red, White & Royal Blue.

Thank you to the young person whose

youtube tutorial on braiding inspired me

even as I decided I needed to buzz it all off.

Thank you to V. for introducing me to TikTok,

with its sea shanties and camembert reviews.

Yes, messy, yes all consuming, yes ads that

won’t click out, yes creepy, yes, the worst of us.

But also fan fic and old friend zoom, poetry

podcasts, that video of the Archbishop

of Canterbury whose cat who creeps on screen

during a reading to steal the milk from a white jug

on his morning table, tentative paw dipping

like a fisher of delight. Yes to this digital

collaboration, this challenge, this gathering

of writers who jam in google docs, who give

me so much joy. Though I may not see you,

meet you, know you, I’m glad you’re here.

Matilda Young is a writer with an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. She has been published in several journals, including Anatolios Magazine and Entropy Magazine. She enjoys Edgar Allan Poe jokes, sharing viral birding videos and being obnoxious about the benefits of stovetop popcorn.

You can follow her on Instagram @matildayoung28.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.

Kapua Iao 5/4/22 Kapua Iao 5/4/22

How I handle rejection

By Arao Ameny

I published my first poem “Home is a Woman” in The Southern Review in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

Before that, I sent the piece out to literary magazines 27 times for two straight years before getting an acceptance.

There’s something extremely humbling about getting out of an MFA program, head fat with ideas of who and what you’ll become, and it doesn’t quite turn out like you imagined.

I graduated from the University of Baltimore in 2019 in the prepandemic, mask-less days (which seem like a lifetime ago) when I had wild ideas of where I would be and what I would be. Although I studied fiction writing in university, I was also reading and writing poetry though I didn’t tell my cohort. In the writing program, we had to choose one discipline but I couldn’t imagine separating prose from poetry. So I asked my poet-classmates many questions, got screenshots of their syllabi, and started doing a poetry self-study alongside my fiction writing program. I also completed several free online poetry courses. I wanted to be a fiction writer and a poet, in that order.

When I graduated from my MFA program, I started submitting prose and poetry to literary magazines and the rejections started rolling in, sometimes three or four in one day. The first one stung so much I had to get a glass of water and sit down for about an hour. I also Googled “how to do breathing exercises” because I was convinced my heart would fall out of my chest that day. That’s when I knew I had to create a plan on how to handle rejection because I needed a way to deal with the rollercoaster of emotions of having something I’d worked on for years be rejected in matter of weeks or months.

I decided to start a journal, scribbling the many reasons I wanted to write. Sentences like “I write because I wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old” or “I write because I love words and sentences and languages” are what I return to when I was down.

Sometimes I would write down 10 reasons and other times I would sit down for an hour and come up with 40 reasons why I write and jot them down into my worn notebook. When a rejection (or two or three) came in, I would immediately open my journal and read aloud the reasons until the sting of the rejection dulled with each repetition.

I remind myself why I write and that it’s okay when others don’t understand my work or find it hard to connect with my story or my voice. I go inward and remind myself that I would be writing even if I had no approval or no audience or any recognition. I do this until the first sentence of the rejection letter rattles less and eventually fades. Then a few days after reading the rejection letter, I commit to studying the story or the poem I’ve submitted, taking it apart, sometimes cutting it to pieces and rearranging those pieces on my floor. If there is feedback from the editor, I address it immediately, let the work sit for a few weeks, and come back again with fresh eyes.

That has been how I have handled rejection. I will continue this ritual until my journal is full of reasons why I write so that I have a compass to guide me when and if I doubt myself or lose my footing. It’s not perfect or pain-free but it helps me have a system and a routine on how to deal with constant and consistent rejection. I’ve learned that having a plan helps me regulate my reaction (and the amount of times I visit the ice cream shop). Having a plan on how to deal with rejection has also helped me put things into perspective. When my mother was alive, I enjoyed making mandazi with her, kneading the slightly sweet dough, rolling it, and cutting into squares before sliding them one by one into hot oil to fry. Whenever I failed at something, she would point to the dough and make me repeat “I rise like well-beaten dough kneaded with both hands.” A cup of tangawizi tea followed.

With each rejection, I rise.

Arao Ameny is a Maryland-based poet and writer from Lira, Lango, Northern Uganda. She is a multigenre writer with a focus on poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She is currently a biography writer and editor at the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine. She earned her MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Baltimore in 2019. She also earned an MA in Journalism from Indiana University and a BA in Political Science with minors in International Relations and Communications from the University of Indianapolis. She is a former fiction editor and copyeditor at Welter, a literary journal at the University of Baltimore. Her first published poem, “Home is a Woman,” won The Southern Review’s 2020 James Olney Award. In 2021, she was a finalist for the United Kingdom-based Brunel International African Poetry Prize, a nominee for the Best New Poets anthology (USA), and a winner of a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship.

Arao is the recipient of the 2022 Mayor’s Individual Artist Award from the Creative Baltimore Fund, a grant from Mayor Brandon Scott, the City of Baltimore, and The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA). She is also a recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Open Door Career Advancement Grant for women writers of color. The workshops she has attended include Tin House and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her favorite writer is Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright, and poet Dambudzo Marechera. Previously, she worked in communications at New York City government and as a writer and social media editor at Africa Renewal magazine at the United Nations in New York City.

Follow Arao on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @araoameny.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.

Kapua Iao 4/1/22 Kapua Iao 4/1/22

Meet the 2022 Yellow Arrow Publishing Writers-in-Residence

Yellow Arrow Publishing is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and loves supporting the array of diverse neighborhoods within the incredible city. And through our 2022 Writers-in-Residence program, the four chosen residents will be weaving the influence of their Baltimore experiences with their words. We encourage our Writers-in-Residence to take inspiration from the Baltimore community by writing in spaces representative of their neighborhood, and we hope that Charm City’s influence is present in their writing. Starting today and continuing through May, our residents will write, collaborate, and grow. Yellow Arrow commits to motivating, supporting, and amplifying their voices.

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. We are so proud of everyone within the Yellow Arrow community. Without further ado, let’s meet the 2022 Yellow Arrow Writers-in-Residence!

Follow Arao on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @araoameny.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During my residency, I’d like to revise a poetry manuscript and generate new poems. I would also like to revise a manuscript of 11 fiction short stories and generate a draft for a new story.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

As a storyteller in Baltimore, I’ve immersed myself in the work of writers with links or connections to this city. I’ve delved into the work of writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zora Neale Hurston, Edgar Allan Poe, Scott Fitzgerald, Frederick Douglass, and many more. As a person who has always found me in transition, migrating, moving, settling, resettling, and ultimately reinventing the self, I look to the writers of each place I go—in this case, Baltimore—as an anchor and a compass for my own writing journey.

Amy L. Bernstein writes for the page, the stage, and forms in between. Her novels include The Potrero Complex, The Nighthawkers, and Fran, The Second Time Around. Amy’s poetry leans heavily on freeform prose poems that address psychological and political states of mind. Amy is an award-winning journalist, playwright, and certified nonfiction book coach.

Follow Amy on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @amylberstein, and Facebook @AmyLBernsteinAuthor. Find her website at amywrites.live.

What will you be working on during your residency?

I intend to hold twice-monthly workshops with emerging and experienced female-identifying poets and writers aged 16 and up from across the city. We will focus on a joint project, namely, using our creative imaginations to reinvent Baltimore a millennium from now. Writers may use poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, or hybrid forms of literary expression to envision a future city that celebrates their possible descendants. We will write separately and together. This project will hopefully culminate in an anthology that may eventually be published.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

Baltimore City has had a big impact on the settings and stories included in much of my fiction and poetry. I’ve written several poems that seek to explore and refract aspects of systemic racism through my sensibility as a white female artist. To that end, I’ve researched specific landmarks, including cemeteries and parks, as well as specific streets in Baltimore, where enslaved people were held or marched down to the docks. Walking through actual landscapes is a huge trigger for the literary imagination. In my novels, Baltimore serves as a backdrop for a variety of plots, ranging from the realistic to the highly fanciful. For instance, in my paranormal romance novel, the Inner Harbor morphs into a shimmery gateway to an alternative reality.

Catrice Greer is a Baltimore-based writer and a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee. In November 2020, she served as a Poet-In-Residence for Cheltenham Poetry Festival (United Kingdom). Her poetic work explores a range of topics about the human condition including mental health wellness, trauma, healing, sciences, nature, astronomy, transcendence, spirituality, identity, heritage, and cultural ancestry. She is published in local publications, online journals, and international anthologies. Currently, Catrice is coeditor of Lapidus Magazine (Lapidus International, UK), guest editor for IceFloe Press (Canada), and a guest poetry reviewer for Fevers of the Mind (U.S.).

Follow Catrice on Twitter @cgreer_greer and Instagram @Gcatrice.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During this residency, my focus is on completing my first poetry chapbook/collection for publication. This particular collection is about trauma, healing, transcendence, nature, and personhood. I explore the human condition.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

My stories are tethered to experiences as a lifelong resident of Baltimore through my eyes, personal history, cultural and socioeconomic overlaps, and cacophony of life experiences. Though some of the narratives are personal, some are observational, and others, are universal. A sense of place acts as a foundational marker at times, and other times as a pivot or contrast.

Matilda Young is a poet with an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. She has been published in several journals, including Anatolios Magazine, Angel City Review, and Entropy Magazine’s Blackcackle. She enjoys Edgar Allan Poe jokes, not being in her apartment, sharing viral birding videos, and being obnoxious about the benefits of stovetop popcorn.

Follow Matilda on Instagram @matildayoung28.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During my residency, I will be focused on how I can share the practice and joy of poetry with my community—virtually and in person. In addition to leading a virtual daily writing practice in April, I will also be finding ways to connect with people in my neighborhood around poetry. During this time, I’ll also be working on finishing my manuscript of poems. And I’ll be putting together a chapbook around the idea of “women and other monsters.”

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

Although I’m a relative newcomer to Baltimore, I feel like living here has infused a lot of my writing. I love the streets I’ve gotten to wander down, the people I’ve gotten to meet, the hawk sightings in Druid Hill Park, and the seagulls that hang out next to my grocery store. I also am deeply inspired by the amazing writers, creators, artists, and advocates in this city. There is so much creativity and community to be found here.

We encourage you to follow along with them on their creative journeys over the next two months. Our hope is that you will be as inspired by the arts as they are, as well as the diverse community we enjoy.

Happy National Poetry Month!

*****

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Kapua Iao 1/24/22 Kapua Iao 1/24/22

Reintroducing Yellow Arrow’s 2022 [virtual] Writing Residency

Application Opens February 7!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is so pleased to reintroduce our Writers-in-Residence program for 2022! Our writing residency program was developed as a way to support and connect emerging writers who identify as women in the Baltimore area, and while we had to put the program on hold last year, we are thrilled to share that we have reimagined the program and will be hosting four [virtual] writers-in-residence for 2022 in April and May. The application opens February 7, so if you are an emerging writer in the Baltimore area, read on for more details and start preparing your application packet!

Read about the 2020 Writers-in-Residence here and the 2019 Writers-in-Residence here. Get your PDF copy of both residency publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. From NOW until February 25, you can purchase PDFs of the 2019 and 2020 residency publications (zipped together) for the low price of $5.00. See what past writers-in-residence created!

Requirements:

Applicants must identify as women and reside in Baltimore City or County. Application packets, including a Google Doc form, resume or CV, and a writing sample, must be completed. The Google Doc will be available at yellowarrowpublishing.com/writerinresidence-program February 7–25.

Who Should Apply:

Emerging to mid career writers are encouraged to apply. You should be able to commit 5–10 hours per week on your writing during this time, but when and where you do your writing is entirely up to you! We specifically designed this residency for writers with many competing demands on their time, so that you can fit the program into your life—whether that means working around a full-time job, part-time gigs, motherhood, quality time with your pet, or other personal responsibilities! We are looking for a diverse range of applicants from a broad scope of neighborhoods in both Baltimore City and County.

Where will you write?

We encourage our Writers-in-Residence to take inspiration from the Baltimore community by writing in spaces representative of your neighborhood, and we hope that Charm City’s influence is present in your writing. We hope that by April/May it will be safer to engage in-person but if it’s not, the weather should be nice enough that you can take advantage of outdoor spaces. The entire program has been designed to be feasible virtually, but when and if we can meet safely in-person, we will certainly try to do so (with your safety as our top priority).

What we hope you will gain:

Writers-in-residence will connect and share within a cohort of local writers during the two-month residency program. Yellow Arrow commits to motivating, supporting, and amplifying the voices of our selected writers-in-residence. You will be provided feedback on your work by your peers in the program, and your blog posts will be featured on Yellow Arrow’s website and social media accounts.

What we hope you will give:

Writers-in-residence will write at least one blog post for Yellow Arrow and teach at least one virtual workshop offered to the Yellow Arrow community during their residency. In addition, they will participate in required events, including orientation, up to four virtual sessions with their cohort of writers, and a virtual reading of their work at the completion of the residency.

Questions? Email anniemarhefka@gmail.com with “YAP Residency” and your name in the subject line.

*****

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. To learn more about publishing, volunteering, or donating, visityellowarrowpublishing.com.

Guest User 3/27/20 Guest User 3/27/20

Art in the Time of Social Distancing

by Annie Marhefka, Highlantown Writer-in-Residence March/April 2020

Well, this is certainly not what (or how) I was expecting to write when I found out that I had been awarded the spring Highlandtown writing residency at Yellow Arrow Publishing. I had envisioned myself cozied up in the newly created writing studio on the second floor of the Yellow Arrow House, looking out the window at the corner of Conkling & Bank Streets, continuing work on my manuscript along with the requirements of the residency. My very first task was to write a blog post about the upcoming Art Walk in April – an art walk that is now going to be virtual, rather than a steady stream of local art-lovers strolling from one venue to the next.

I had plans to walk around to the Highlandtown businesses and introduce myself, inquire about what types of exhibits they would be sharing at the Art Walk, ask what artists they planned to feature, and learn how they intended to capture April’s theme of “collage.” Instead, on the weekend before the first COVID-19 cases in Baltimore had been confirmed, I nervously entered shops, awkwardly standing at least six feet away and giving a shy wave as I introduced myself from afar. There was a sense of nervousness and unease, a feeling that the doors were about to be shut, and I felt like I was wasting the shop owners’ time as they anxiously awaited what was to come, the events that would be cancelled, the customers that would not visit, the income they were to lose.

In the days since my introductions, those businesses have changed drastically – some have closed indefinitely. Some have transformed their business models. Off the Rox is no longer hosting wine tastings on-site, but is still open. DiPasquale’s, which used to be my go-to destination for Italian subs, is now one of the only places I can buy milk for my baby when the big chain stores have all sold out. Peak Performance’s gym is closed, while owner Paul Breen is finding ways to offer virtual fitness options for members. Similarly, Rust-n-Shine’s owners are looking for creative ways to stay in business – perhaps posting photos of vintage items available for curbside pickup. The Creative Alliance is no longer hosting shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for performances, but instead a series of “Sidewalk Serenades” where you can pay to have local musicians perform outside your home. I find myself at home on my laptop, searching the local businesses’ social media pages to find ways to support them from afar. This is not how I pictured Highlandtown opening its arms to me during my writing residency.

But I can’t allow myself to wallow in my disappointment of this residency not being all I had dreamed it to be. For many, entire livelihoods have been disrupted, even halted in their entirety, while my stay-at-home-mom gig has only slightly transformed. I used to pride myself on being the stay-at-home mom who never stayed at home. Now – I epitomize the term, as do all other Baltimore mothers. But for me, this change is not devastating, as it is for many who have lost their income, had surgeries cancelled, are terrified for elderly relatives whom they can’t even visit, have postponed weddings, or cancelled funeral services.

So I need to suck it up, and do what I’m supposed to be doing - writing about next month’s art walk theme, collage. As I go about my daily routine, I try to imagine what collages might line the walls of Highlandtown Gallery, the shelves of Y:Art, or the display racks in Night Owl Gallery. That’s the tricky thing about art – it is really difficult to see if you can’t go into the galleries. Imagine that!

Then, it occurs to me early on Thursday morning that my daily routine is now entirely comprised of collages, in the form of virtual video chats spread out across my day. What used to be in-person interactions have been reduced to collections of tiny square images of individuals quarantined in their homes, displayed on my laptop screen.

In the morning, my local moms-only workout group that used to meet up in Patterson Park is now a virtual workout led from the instructor’s living room. Each woman is in some six foot by six foot space of her choosing in her own abode, and the majority of us have kiddos climbing on our backs as we try to hold a plank. I’m using my daughter’s playroom and trying to avoid stepping on legos as I do jumping jacks. But there on my laptop screen are ten other isolated mamas, trying to get in some type of exercise in whatever form it may come, all reaching arms over head in unison, in tiny little squares, forming a perfectly in-sync montage.

Later in the afternoon, I’ll video chat my daughter’s grandparents so they can get a tiny glimpse of the little girl they are terrified will forget who they are by the time this is all over. My one-year-old doesn’t understand video chat; the side by side faces confuse her, and she mostly tries to grab the phone out of my hand, her tantrum of tears when I won’t let her hold it probably feeling like confirmation to my mother-in-law that she has, in fact, forgotten them.

Later that evening I’ll have a conference call with my peers to hold a virtual meeting for the non-profit board we serve on, and again we will be tiny squares of faces on a screen, comprising a larger picture. And to end the day, my husband and I will put our daughter to bed, pour some wine, and have a virtual toast with friends who have set up a live streaming session for Baltimore musicians who are suddenly out of work. They will name virtual bartenders, also now without income, for us to tip via Venmo as we imagine the familiar faces passing us a Natty Boh across the bar. They’ll strum their guitars to the requests that are coming in via the chat feature, and when we all send our collage of clapping and heart emojis at the end, they’ll give us a little bow to the camera and sign off.

I’m also spending my days building puzzles – a hobby that has suddenly become trendy but has been an obsession of mine for quite some time (so much so that my husband has jokingly suggested a monthly cap on the number of puzzles I order, as the storage shelves in our basement have now overflowed into wobbly stacks of boxed puzzle towers). These puzzles bring me great fulfillment – I love organizing the pieces, taking my time selecting just the right one to get me one step closer to this large collage.

Today, I’ve chosen a puzzle from Zwiebach Creations at the Highlandtown Gallery; I only have the border assembled so far, but it will be an image of a charcuterie display inside DiPasquale’s Marketplace. It feels a bit surreal to be living in this time, and as I piece the puzzle together, I am keenly aware that when this crisis is all over, we will all be piecing little bits of our lives back together. Unlike my puzzle, with a clear image on the front of the box to guide me, the image of what our world, our Baltimore, and our Highlandtown will look like is uncertain. My little perspective is one story that will combine with thousands of others; together these stories will develop into one big mosaic of what this crisis was, how it impacted us, how it changed us. We don’t know the ending yet. But we’ll build it anyway, together, and I have a feeling in the end, we will make one beautiful collage.

***

Annie Marhefka is a freelance writer, HR consultant, and mother residing in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her BA in Creative Writing from Washington College on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and an MBA with a concentration in HR Management. Her career includes 15 years as an HR executive & COO overseeing all HR functions, operations, and communications for a leader in the education technology industry. Annie serves on the Board of Directors for St. Francis Neighborhood Center in Reservoir Hill, and is the Vice President of the board for The Barbara J. Dreyer Cares Foundation. She lives in Canton with her husband John and their daughter Elena. Her love of writing was shared with her late mother, who inspired her to write about the complexities and intimate nature of the mother/daughter relationship.

Annie is the Highlandtown Writer-in-Residence for March and April. The residency program is sponsored by Yellow Arrow Publishing, the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk, Highlandtown Arts, the Southeast CDC, and Highlandtown Main Street.

Guest User 2/15/20 Guest User 2/15/20

2020 Highlandtown Writers-in-Residence

Meet the 2020 Highlandtown Writers-in-Residence!

This residency program is sponsored by Yellow Arrow Publishing, the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk, Highlandtown Arts, the Southeast CDC, and Highlandtown Main Street.

Yellow Arrow Publishing is based in Highlandtown and loves supporting our neighborhood events. A large tenant of our mission is to support other writers by providing opportunities to gain visibility in the community. This residency was created for those what want and need time to work on their writing, but aren’t able to leave home for weeks or months at a time.

You can meet them during the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk, furiously scribbling at Yellow Arrow House, or perhaps wandering around Highlandtown in an inspired daze.

2020 Highlandtown Writers-in-Residence

Annie will be the writer-in-residence for March and April.

India Kushner is a writer with a BA in Communications/Journalism from Goucher College. Fueled by tea, poetry, and her love of Harry Potter, India has always believed in the power of words to create positive change. She has previously published work at TheTempest.co and in The Corvus Review.

India will be the writer-in-residence for May and June.

Barbara Perez Marquez was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College. She writes short stories and fiction, usually using coming of age and LGBTQ themes in her work. During her career, she has also been an editor for several publications and projects. Her work was first featured in a student collection in the 7th grade, the same year she decided she wanted to be a writer. Since then, she's been featured in Manhattanville College's Graffiti and Tinta Extinta. Her latest work, The Cardboard Kingdom, is a graphic novel about a neighborhood of kids having a summer adventure and is out now from Knopf Books for Young Readers and Random House Children's Books. Book two, The Cardboard Kingdom: Roar of the Beast, is due out in 2021. Barbara lives in Baltimore, MD with her fiance and their dog, Eliot.

Barbara will be the writer-in-residence for September and October.

Stephanie Garon received dual science degrees from Cornell University, then attended Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Her environmental art has been exhibited internationally in London, Colombia, and South Korea, as well as across the United States. Her writing, a critical aspect of her artistic process, has been published in international literary journals and performed adjacent to her artwork. When she’s not in her studio, she’s jumping across river beds to comb through pine needles.

Stephanie will be the writer-in-residence for November and December.

Ann Quinn 9/25/19 Ann Quinn 9/25/19

Writers in Real Life: Laura Hazan

Yellow Arrow is pleased to introduce our fall Writer-in-Residence, Laura Hazan. Laura is a librarian with the Enoch Pratt Free Library where she runs the weekly read and critique group, The Light Street Writers Exchange. She completed her first novel, Little Boxes, and is seeking representation for publication. She has a B.A. in communications from American University, a M.L.S. from the University of Maryland, and attended the “Your Novel Year” program at Arizona State University’s Piper Writing Center. In addition, her work has been published in Natural Bridge, Kirkwood Patch, Sauce Magazine, and Not A Pipe Publishing’s #yearofpublishingwomen anthology Strongly Worded Women. Laura is a resident of Baltimore and lives with her son, her husband, and their one-eyed dog, Boh.

We asked Laura a few questions as she prepares for the residency.

YAP: What do you love about Baltimore?

LH: Walking along the promenade around the harbor at sunset shows Baltimore at its best. I also love the history of literature and reading that makes up the fabric of Baltimore. There's Edgar Allen Poe, HL Menken, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Laura Lippman and so many others. Tying all those folks together is the Enoch Pratt Free Library - the first system in the US to have branch libraries.

YAP: Who has inspired you the most in your writing journey?

LH: I have favorite authors, as we all do; they're inspirational but they are not the first people to come to mind when I think about this question. Those who inspire me most are the folks at the opposite end of the spectrum from the famous writers. Those diligent writers who work at it everyday never knowing if anyone else will ever read their work. The newbies that attend a writing critique group for the first time and nervously share their stories or poems. The colleagues who generously offer to beta read a manuscript, or organize a workshop, or volunteer for a conference. Frankly, the writing community would not exist without the hard work and efforts of the thousands we will never know.

YAP: As you continue in your process of finding a publisher for your novel, do you have any advice to offer someone embarking on that venture?

LH: When you have completed your first manuscript you are a novelist - published or not - don't let anyone tell you differently. Prepare yourself for a mountain of rejections - it doesn't mean your work is no good it just means you haven't found the right agent/publisher that loves it as much as you do. Track those rejections on the spreadsheet you keep for your submissions and move on. Prepare yourself for days of self-doubt - every writer I know goes through impostor syndrome at least once. Myself, I've felt like an impostor on and off for years. Remember there are about 342 steps to getting your book from draft to published - it takes time, especially for the first novel, but keep at it.

We look forward to seeing Laura around Highlandtown this fall. Please check out her website for more on Laura: www.laurahazan.com

Guest User 7/1/19 Guest User 7/1/19

Writers in Real Life: Jessica Gregg

Jessica Gregg is the Yellow Arrow writer-in-residence for the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk during the months of July, August and September. Jessica grew up in the Baltimore area, listening to her family’s stories of the city’s street car days. She and her children lived in Bozeman, Montana, before returning to Baltimore more than a decade ago.

Most of her career since then has been spent in education, and much of her poetry has been informed by the time she spent working at Sisters Academy of Baltimore, a middle school for girls from Southwest Baltimore. Three years ago, she left education and returned to her first career, journalism, and currently oversees three magazines, one of which is Baltimore Style.

In the fall of 2017, she decided to take a prose poetry class through Johns Hopkins University’s Odyssey program as a way to keep writing after spending work days editing. After the class, she entered a contest for women poets that was sponsored by Finishing Line Press. She did not win the contest, but the press chose to publish her manuscript News from This Lonesome City, which will be released this summer.

Poetry is Jessica’s way of documenting the moments and stories in life that are most meaningful to her. It’s also a chance to play with words in a way that the day job doesn’t always provide.

Jessica hopes to use her residency to work on a new collection of poems and to teach a workshop or two for the community.

Jessica will be giving a reading in addition to a book signing at Literary Night on August 2nd. Find her circulating the art walk in July, August and September.

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Writers in Real Life: Kerry Graham

We are happy to welcome Kerry as our first Writer-in-Residence. You can find Kerry at the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk in April, May, and June and hear her read her work at Yellow Arrow's August 2nd reading.

Kerry spent the first few years of her life in Baltimore, but was raised in Baltimore County. After going to college in Southern Maryland, attending grad school in England, and being a full-time volunteer in Nigeria, she moved to Baltimore in 2009. She lived in Pigtown for two years, but has been in the Patterson Park area since then. Almost three years ago, she bought a house in Highlandtown/Patterson Park, and couldn't be happier about being part of this neighborhood.

About her experience in Baltimore, she writes, "Sometimes, I describe myself as being hopefully devoted to Baltimore. My entire professional career, I’ve served some of Baltimore’s most marginalized populations: the HIV+, homeless, and its youth. While I have the fortune of being able to enjoy much of Baltimore’s charm, I care about hundreds of people who have been traumatized by Baltimore. I recognize that to be in this position–someone who gets to experience some of the best of Baltimore, but also understands the depths of its worst–is relatively uncommon, which is why I am committed to writing, and story sharing, and using language as a way to unite those who might otherwise never have found one another. I believe I would have been a writer regardless of where I live, but Baltimore has made my writing meaningful."

Kerry’s vignettes have appeared, or are forthcoming, in borrowed solace, The Citron Review, Crack the Spine, and Gravel. She is a regular contributor to Role Reboot, and runs a collaborative weekly newsletter called In This Together.

from gravelmag.com

Promise Him Pencils

Kerry Graham

I cannot tell which day I mark him absent, again, is the one I know he will not be back. He stops coming to class—mine, and apparently algebra, and biology—but still comes to school. In the halls, he holds his back straighter than he ever did in my room; his eyes shine brighter. Here, it does not matter that he never has paper. Pencils. Whenever we pass each other by the stairwell, he stops laughing long enough to vow, “Ima be there tomorrow!” The next day, I tell myself: he meant it at the time.

Soon, he stops coming to school, but I still see him sometimes. Now, instead of by the stairs, I pass him on the street, wondering how far he is from home. The sun shines on him here.

In my car, even with just glimpses of him, I am reminded of how he would look in the hallway. Every time I see him, it is at the same corner, too far—and too late—for me to promise him pencils. Driving past, I know all the reasons he will not realize I am there. I shout anyway.

This morning, the streets only trickle with traffic, and I can tell that today is the one he will see me. Again, I shout his name. Watching him grin at me as he lifts his hand above his head to wave, I want to press the brakes on my car. On time.

Gwen Van Velsor 3/28/19 Gwen Van Velsor 3/28/19

Meet the Highlandtown Writers-in-Residence

We are pleased to introduce the inaugural cohort of writers-in-residence for the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk. The art walk season extends from April until December and these three talented writers will immerse themselves in all things Highlandtown during their three month residencies. Be sure to seek them out while browsing the venues during the art walk.

Kerry Graham, April - June

Kerry Graham lives, teaches, writes and runs in East Baltimore. Her vignettes have appeared, or are forthcoming, in borrowed solace, The Citron Review, Crack the Spine, and Gravel. She is a regular contributor to Role Reboot, and runs a collaborative weekly newsletter called In This Together.

Jessica Gregg, July - September

Jessica Gregg is the editor of Baltimore Style magazine and also oversees Baltimore's Child and Washington Family magazines. She is a Baltimore booster, proud rowhouse dweller, the mother of two teenagers, and an avid poetry reader. Her poetry collection "News from this Lonesome City" will be published this year by Finishing Line Press.

Laura Hazan, October - December

Laura Hazan is a librarian with the Enoch Pratt Free Library where she runs the bimonthly Light Street Writers Exchange. She completed her first novel, Little Boxes, and is seeking representation for publication. She attended the “Your Novel Year” program at Arizona State University’s Piper Writing Center where she was instructed and mentored by best-selling novelists Michael Stackpole and Jean Rabe, among others. In addition, her work has been published in Natural Bridge, Kirkwood Patch, Sauce Magazine, and Not A Pipe Publishing #yearofpublishingwomen anthology Strongly Worded Women available at Amazon.com and other booksellers. Laura is a resident of Baltimore and lives with her son, her husband and their one-eyed dog, Boh.

Gwen Van Velsor 2/20/19 Gwen Van Velsor 2/20/19

Highlandtown Writer-in-Residence Opportunity

Writer-in-Residence Opportunity with Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk and Yellow Arrow Publishing

What: Enjoy a three month daytime writing residency in Highlandtown. Get inspired by the First Friday Art Walk and work on your own writing at various venues in Highlandtown. Great opportunity and exposure for Baltimore writers who want to engage with and inspire a passion for the literary arts in the community. Residents will be featured in a reading event on August 2nd during the “Summer Reading” themed art walk as well as in social media promotions with both Yellow Arrow and Highlandtown marketing efforts. Yellow Arrow will also publish a zine featuring residents' work at the end of the 2019 art walk season.

When: We are looking for three writers each year. Each writer will be assigned to either the Spring (April, May, June), Summer (July, August, September), or Fall (October, November, December). During their season, each writer will attend all three Art Walks on the first Friday of each month, and will be provided a minimum of six days to work in various venues in Highlandtown. If more than six work days are desired during the assigned season, we will coordinate this with the venues and writer.

Where: The Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk consists of various art galleries, restaurants, retail locations and other businesses within the Highlandtown neighborhood. Writers-in-residence will become familiar with the venues during their orientation and will be assigned places in the neighborhood where they can work throughout their residency block.

How: Selected writers will create three blog posts in total (minimum 500 words) to be submitted one week after each Art Walk occuring in their designated season. The blog post must be related to the art walk, the participating venues, or Highlandtown in general and will be featured on ihearthighlandtown.com.

Why: Yellow Arrow Publishing is based in Highlandtown and loves supporting our neighborhood events. A large tenant of our mission is to support other writers by providing opportunities to gain visibility in the community. During this residency you will have the opportunity to meet and engage with writers and supportive community members in the arts. Our hope is that you will be inspired by the arts district here in Highlandtown as well as the diverse community we enjoy.

Who: We are looking for Baltimore writers interested in community building and growing their network in the arts. Emerging to career writers are invited to apply. All genres welcome. Perfect for writers needing a little extra time and inspiration for an ongoing project they are already working on, such as a manuscript. Also great for writers who are looking to get inspired and start working on something new.

Ready to apply?

Residency application due by March 8, 2019

Yellow Arrow Publishing seeks to support, nurture and inspire writers identifying as women. We provide writing related opportunities for writers in the Baltimore community and beyond through publication, workshops, and an interactive reading series.

Arao Ameny

Amy L. Bernstein

Catrice Greer

Matilda Young

Application Opens February 7!

2020 Highlandtown Writers-in-Residence

Kerry Graham, April - June

Jessica Gregg, July - September

Laura Hazan, October - December

Writer-in-Residence Opportunity with Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk and Yellow Arrow Publishing

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