Meet a Staff Member: Annie Marhefka
Yellow Arrow Publishing is incredibly excited to officially introduce our new Executive Director, Annie Marhefka, to the Yellow Arrow family. Annie is a writer, HR consultant, and mama residing in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband John and their daughter Elena. When she’s not reading or writing, she loves traveling, building puzzles, and hiking with her toddler. Her work has been featured on Coffee + Crumbs. Annie is working on a memoir about mother/daughter relationships; you can find her writing on Instagram and at anniemarhefka.com.
Here’s what Annie had to say about joining Yellow Arrow:
There are really three core areas I feel passionate about in my work: helping organizations grow and thrive, creating/writing, and empowering women. It feels very serendipitous to have found a role where I can combine my background and talents to contribute to all of these passions under one (virtual) roof. I’m thrilled to get to know the Yellow Arrow community better and support its ongoing vision.
Annie took some time recently to answer some questions for us. Show her some love in the comments or on Facebook/Instagram!
Tell us a little something about yourself:
My professional career has centered around using my HR expertise to help organizations grow and thrive. I love helping businesses create from scratch and use culture as a driving force for change and development. I spent over a decade helping to build and grow one of the largest providers of K-12 online education in the U.S. as Head of HR and later COO. Most recently, I established an HR consulting firm, The Vivi Group, and provide services to organizations in the areas of organizational design, employee engagement, change management, communications, talent development, and policy and risk management.
What do you love most about Baltimore?
I truly find Baltimore charming in its diverse landscape, culture, people, and food. I love that I can walk between neighborhoods in the city, but also that I can spend weekends on my father’s boat on the bay; that I can have a delicious dinner at Gunther & Co. or steamed crabs in the backyard; that I can be one of thousands tailgating for a Ravens game or catch incredible live music in Fells Point at a cozy dive bar. I love Baltimore’s grit, quirkiness, and charm.
How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow and what do you do?
In 2020, I was awarded a writing residency at Yellow Arrow. I was one week into my residency when the state of the COVID-19 pandemic had begun to shut things down, and so I had to figure out a way to complete my residency virtually. Along the way, I met some incredibly talented writers and supporters of Yellow Arrow and was drawn to the sense of connection and support surrounding the organization.
What are you working on currently?
I spend my time juggling many different passions! My toddler is about to start preschool but until recently, she was my main nine-to-five gig. I am working through edits of the first draft of my memoir about mother/daughter relationships. I am in the process of launching a volunteer-run writing initiative called The Salt Box Creative along with some very talented local writers. I also provide HR services through my consulting business.
What genre do you write and why?
I write mostly creative nonfiction, but lately have also been dabbling in some poetry as well. I am fueled by relationships (and coffee), so I love using my writing as a way to explore connections between individuals.
Who is your favorite writer and why?
It’s so hard for me to pick just one! Instead, I will share some writers I’m currently loving! I just finished What Kind of Woman, a poetry collection by Kate Baer that was just stunning. I am still going back and rereading certain poems that spoke to my soul (and recommending them to all of my female friends). I am also reading Beth Kephart’s Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, which has really helped me hone in on the craft of writing memoirs as I work on mine.
Who has inspired and/or supported you most in your writing journey?
My mother was my biggest inspiration and also the biggest supporter of my writing. When I was young, she was a stay-at-home mom to me and my brothers but during that time, she also built her own poetry business from scratch. She would meet with individuals and talk to them about a loved one and then write a poem for them. I would help her pick out the perfect stationery and frame the gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings. She really touched people with her poems, and it inspired me to find work that I was passionate about, and that would mean something to others.
What do you love most about writing?
I love that writing can serve such different purposes for different individuals. For me personally, it is both a vocation, a therapeutic endeavor, an act of self-reflection, and a creative outlet. I love reading something that I connect with deeply, and I love when my writing evokes the same feeling for someone else.
What advice do you have for new writers?
I recently participated in a writing workshop where we had to write three pages every morning, longhand. This was a little bit of a shock to my system, as I hadn’t written longhand since college; my handwriting is terrible, and I usually prefer the efficiency of typing on my laptop. By the third day, my hands were cramping, and I felt like I was just writing a lot of garbage. But at some point, it turned into a habit and I started writing some really good stuff—better than anything I’d typed in months. I realized that without the distraction of my laptop tools, I was able to just dump out my thoughts without editing myself along the way. It was really freeing. I often go back and find little gems in those pages that I can turn into something great, and it’s something I’ve tried to keep up. So my advice would be to try to write every day, even if it feels like you’re just producing garbage.
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We are so fortunate to have Annie join our team. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.