Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog
First Friday Reading Series - June 1st
Join us every First Friday for the
for live author readings by local writers and poets. Each month will feature a different genre, including Local Flavor, Science Fiction and more. Light beverages and snacks will be provided. Come out and explore the literature growing in your own back yard, and support your local authors, writers, and publishers.
When: June 1st, 5 – 9PM and every first Friday of the monthWhere: Dennis Moore’s Pottery Studio, corner of S. Conkling and Bank, 21224. Across from Rooftop Hot in Highlandtown.This month we celebrate the art of storytelling with Memoir Night. Sharing a little bit about lives makes us all stronger. See more info on each author below.6:15pmLeslie Kain has a B.A. in Psychology from Wellesley College and an MBA from Boston University. She has written much nonfiction throughout her various professions and began writing fiction in 2016. She draws from her careers in psychology, business, high tech, Intelligence and nonprofits to create stories steeped in psychological complexity with multilayered plots and typically dark character arcs. Although occasionally dabbling in memoir, she usually prefers to re-purpose those memories into works of fiction. She has had two short stories published, has completed her first novel (looking for an agent!), and has begun a new novel.6:30pmMaggie Epps began her career as a playwright at age 6. However, it reached its peak at age 8 after her class put on her World War II epic. She retired to focus on her education. After graduating from NYU with a degree in Passion Studies, Maggie explored Washington, DC. She worked on Capitol Hill, and in a variety of childcare and food service jobs. She earned a Masters in Social Work from Catholic University. Afterwards, she worked in community mental health, before venturing out to Mountain View, California to learn web development. These days, Maggie lives in Baltimore, Maryland and works for the Wikimedia Foundation, helping them fund projects like Wikipedia. In her abundant free time, she chases a toddler, and writes speculative fiction and occasionally non-fiction.7:00pmGwen Van Velsor writes creative nonfiction and pseudo-inspirational prose. She started Yellow Arrow Publishing, a project that publishes and supports writers who identify as women. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Gwen has moved many times, from sea to shining sea, now calling Highlandtown her forever home. Her major accomplishments include walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, raising a toddler, and being ok with life exactly as it is. Her memoir, Follow That Arrow, was published in 2016.7:15pmCija (pronounced Kia) Jefferson is the author of Sonic Memories, a collection of personal essays. Her work has been featured in Yellow Arrow Journal, Baltimore STYLE, HelloGiggles, The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, and Baltimore Fishbowl. When she is not watching copious amounts of Bravo and HBO, she is reading and, of course, writing. 7:45pmDr. Diane Pomerantz is a clinical psychologist who has been in practice working with children, adolescents, and adults in the Baltimore, Maryland area for over thirty-five years. She has done extensive work in the area of trauma and child abuse and research in the area of personality development of abused children. She currently runs Healing Through Writing groups in her practice. She is a breast cancer survivor and has two wonderful grown children. She and her shaggy dog, Rug, live amidst tall trees on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland.8:00pmJeannie Vanasco is the author of The Glass Eye: A Memoir. Featured by Poets & Writers as one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017, The Glass Eye was also selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick, an Indies Introduce Pick, and an Indie Next Pick. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Believer, the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Tin House, and on NewYorker.com. She is an assistant professor of English at Towson University and lives in Baltimore. She is working on her second book.8:30pmLisa M. Van Wormer is a memoirist who loves using the alluring poetry form to tell and enhance her stories. Along with Yellow Arrow, her writing has been included in xoJane, Huffington Post, AMVETS Magazine and Baltimore Fishbowl, among others. Her work has also been featured as a part of multiple shows on the Baltimore NPR station (WYPR). Lisa has an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from University of Baltimore and is constantly seeking avenues to process and heal through her art. To find out more, see her website at www.lmvanwormer.com and follow her on twitter @lisavanmark.8:45pm
Cybele (rhymes with What The Hell) Pomeroy is an itinerant artist for hire, for the last it's none of your business, but graduated from Loyola College, before it had grown up and become Loyola University, where she studied writing, literature, education and drama. She never studied costuming, improv or physical comedy but does them anyway. She's written and produced various comedy murder mysteries, a 17-minute interactive limerick operetta called Don Juan The Iguana, the 3 1/2-hour Watergate! The Musical, and was lead writer on a conflict-resolution computer game called Harmony Island. Cybele’s poetry has appeared in Poets Ink, City Paper and Scribble Literary Magazine. She's 5'3", brown-eyed, moderately snarky and writes all her Facebook status in 17 syllables. None of her memoirs have yet been published, unless you count blogging, which she doesn’t.
First Friday Reading Series - May 4th
Join us every First Friday for the
for live author readings by local writers and poets. Each month will feature a different genre, including Local Flavor, Science Fiction, Memoir, and more. Light beverages and snacks will be provided. Come out and explore the literature growing in your own back yard, and support your local authors, writers, and publishers.
When: May 4th, 5 – 9PM and every first Friday of the monthWhere: Dennis Moore’s Pottery Studio, corner of S. Conkling and Bank, 21224. Across from Rooftop Hot in Highlandtown.May the Fourth be with you! This month we dive into sci-fi with the exception of our final author of the night, Rafael Alvarez. See more info on each author below.8:30pmRafael Alvarez is an author based in Baltimore and Los Angeles. Alvarez went to work for the Sunpapers of Baltimore as a teenager - first in the circulation department and then the horse racing desk in sports - before landing on the City Desk as a utility man and neighborhood folklorist. He was with The Sun from 1977 through 2001. After leaving the paper, Alvarez worked on ships as a laborer before joining the staff of the HBO drama The Wire. He also worked on the NBC crime dramas Life and The Black Donnellys.Among his many books are two short story collections - The Fountain of Highlandtown and Orlo & Leini; a history of the Archdiocese of Baltimore; two anthologies of journalism - Hometown Boy and Storyteller; and The Tuerk House, a history of Baltimore's pioneering drug and alcohol treatment center for the poor. In 2010, he was nominated for an Edgar Award for The Wire: Truth Be Told, an encyclopedic companion to the television series. His latest book,Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown, was released in 2017. 8:00pmGeetha Stachowiak is a science fiction writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Despite a lot of schooling and college, writing remained her real love, and out of it came two books: ‘The Srin Dominion: The Vahrean Iteration’ and ‘My Bitchy Boss’ (Amazon). Iteration is a space opera about a young woman formerly an alien queen, dealing with repercussions from a murderous past life; My Bitchy Boss is about a young woman trying to survive a boss far more evil than the everyday bitch. Geetha is very interested in film and serialized shows, and hopes to have her screenplays (two based on the books above) produced. She’s on Twitter @scifinutjob, and also has a film review column at reelmama.com.7:30pmA lifetime writer and lover of books, Ariele Sieling delves into the exciting possibilities of science fiction from her home in Baltimore, MD, where she lives with three cats, a dog, and a husband. She is the author of the scifi series TheSagittan Chronicles and the children's book series, Rutherford the Unicorn sheep, and will soon be releasing the first in the scifi YA series Land of Szornyek.7:00pmBorn in North Carolina and a Baltimore transplant, Dara Crawley is an avid writer and reader with a deep love for the magic of speculative fiction. Her passion is especially deep for centering those often on the sidelines. Currently she is attending the UMB School of Social Work while focusing on finishing a collection of southern gothic fiction set in North Carolina and two novels. 6:30pmMatt Galeone was raised in Seekonk, Massachusetts and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of the sci-fi/adventure books The 15th Chair Book 1: The Journey, and The Champion of Clarendon Ditch Trilogy, as well as the children's books Oberst and Valentine Find Their Human, and A Very Oberst & Valentine Christmas . He is currently working on the next two books in The 15th Chair Trilogy.
First Friday Reading Series: April
Join us every
First Friday Art Walk in Highlandtown
for live author readings by local writers and poets. Each month will feature a different genre, including Local Flavor, Science Fiction, Memoir, and more. Light beverages and snacks will be provided. Come out and explore the literature growing in your own back yard, and support your local authors, writers, and publishers.
When: Every first Friday, starting April 6, 5 - 9PMWhere: Dennis Moore's Pottery Studio, corner of S. Conkling and Bank, 21224. Across from Rooftop Hot.In April we are keeping it local and hosting the following writers of books, essays and poetry about Baltimore.6:00pmJudy Colbert is an award-winning author and photographer who specializes in travel. Her most recent book is "100 Things to Do in Baltimore Before You Die." She’s also authored or co-authored "Peaceful Places Washington, DC", "Chesapeake Bay Crabs" cookbook, "It Happened in Maryland," "It Happened in Delaware," "Maryland and Delaware Off the Beaten Path", "Super Bowl Trivia," and "Virginia Off the Beaten Path". Her current interest is restaurants on the Chesapeake Bay where people can dock their boats.6:30pmAshley Elizabeth is a 20-something year old black poet from Baltimore who draws inspiration from her city, her people, her space, and her body. As a Hollins graduate, she hopes to inspire future generations of writers and literature lovers, but teaching is only one of her passions. She has been featured in online journals such as Rose Water, Passages North, Rat's Ass Review, and For the Sonorous among others. Ashley is also Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications. She habitually posts on Twitter and Instagram @ae_thepoet7:00pmHarford Hopson is a writer from Baltimore, Maryland. In his formative years, he was uprooted and displaced to Pennsylvania, where he was force-fed hog maw by Quakers and made to watch Steeler football. He is the author of the crime drama novel, Amusement Only and his poetry has been featured in End of 83. He describes his work, among many interpretations, as the pulpy romance between unlikely classes in the American race.7:30pmKristina Gaddy is a Baltimore-based writer who focuses on history, culture, and health. The piece "Labors" was a finalist for Proximity Magazine's 2017 Narrative Journalism Prize. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, Ozy, Goucher Quarterly, and UMBC Magazine among others. Her nonfiction book about teenagers who fought the Nazis during the Third Reich will be published by Dutton in 2019.8:00pmEvan L. Balkan is the author of six books of nonfiction, including The Wrath of God: Lope de Aguirre; Revolutionary of the Americas (Univ. of New Mexico Press) as well as many essays and short stories in an array of publications. His novel Spitfire is forthcoming from Amphorae Publishing. His screenplay Spitfire, adapted from his novel of the same name, won both the 2016 Baltimore Screenwriters Competition and a Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellowship; his screenplay Children of Disobedience won the 2017 Baltimore Screenwriting Competition. He is a co-writer for the television series, Wayward Girls. He coordinates the English Department at the Community College of Baltimore County, where he runs the creative writing program, and is an adjunct faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University's graduate Teaching Writing program. He holds degrees in the humanities from Towson, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins universities. The latter degree is in creative writing with a fiction concentration and his thesis project, the novel Root That Mountain Down, won an Individual Artist Award for Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council and was subsequently excerpted in the Baltimore Review. He has served as a guest lecturer at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr and many other institutions.8:30pmKaren Hattrup grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with her parents and brother, devouring books from an early age. At Loyola University Maryland, she studied journalism and spent a semester abroad in Thailand. She went on to become a newspaper reporter, first in Maryland and then in Indiana, writing features and serving as an award-winning arts critic. Karen later studied nonfiction writing at the Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Baltimore City with her husband, daughter, and son.Why:We love supporting local authors and writers. The idea for this series was born out of wanting to add a literary arts component to the art walk. And here we are!How:This series is powered by Yellow Arrow Publishing and Ariele Sieling, residents of Highlandtown.
First Friday Readings
Free Readings by Local Writers
Come take part in a new writers' series at Highlandtown's First Friday Artwalk. Enjoy live readings by local writers and poets. A variety of genres (including flash fiction and poetry) will be represented in 15 minute segments. Feel free to listen to one or all. Open mic sign-ups as time permits. Light beverages and snacks provided. Come out and support independent publishing. For the evening’s schedule and listing of writers visit YellowArrowPublishing.com.
When: Friday October 6, 2017, 6 - 8 pm
Where: basement of Breath of God Church at 141 S. Clinton St, at Pratt Street
Cost: Free but suggested church donation is appreciated.