Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog

Kapua Iao 2/16/21 Kapua Iao 2/16/21

Rewriting Tradition

Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to announce our first guest editor for Yellow Arrow Journal, Taína, who will be overseeing the creation of our Vol. VI, No. I issue on cultural resurrections. Taína is a proud Higuayagua Taíno writer on a mission to reclaim her indigenous Taíno culture and write her people back into existence with the same tools colonizers used to erase them. Connect with her at www.tainawrites.com or on Instagram @tainaconcurls.

Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram for the theme announcement at the end of this month. Below, you can read Taína’s perspectives on rewriting traditions.

By Taína

Originally written November 2020, updated February 2021

Our first Thanksgiving in our new home was in 2019, down the block from my brother. My family of four’s geographical shift tipped the family balance 5:2 in Baltimore’s favor, beginning what we thought would be a new tradition of having my parents over for Thanksgiving at our house. This year (2020) only proved us partly wrong.

For most of us, 2020 has been downright dystopic. A pandemic has taken over 400,000 Americans and has rewritten every aspect of life down to our most time-honored traditions. Bridal gowns are now designed with coordinating face masks. Birthday songs are sung through Zoom. Hugging now expresses a deeper intimacy, while avoidance has become a love language. Halloween was hollow and Thanksgiving thinner than ever, all to the tune of being gaslighted by those who insisted their right to celebrate supersedes life itself.

If I’m being honest, I’ve never really liked Thanksgiving. It’s always been more of a day built on resentment than gratitude. As a child, before I knew the Pilgrim and Indian story was a fabrication, I resented the long boring day of tortuous aromas that would fill me up long before they were tasted, so I could never eat as much as I wanted. As a teenager, I resented Mount Saint Dishmore waiting to be handwashed after the meal. These resentments were only aggravated when I discovered the first Thanksgiving was really a post-victory celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequots right in the middle of their Green Corn Festival. The year I found out about how Lincoln decreed the first official Thanksgiving should be scheduled one month to the day before the anniversary of the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors—the largest one-day mass execution in American history, I skipped it altogether.

I chose a man whose indifference toward the day was so synchronous with mine, he agreed to get married on Thanksgiving. We intended to rebrand it all together and secure a perpetual excused absence from having to celebrate at all, though we missed the fine print that said the pass didn’t apply to young children missing their parents on a day most people spend with their families.

As a person who has experienced the extreme erasure of being forced in school to memorize the names of the ships, but never once being taught the name of the people those ships carried into slavery (except that Columbus accidentally called them “Indians” and it stuck), despite being named after those people, I couldn’t understand why my family wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving at all. Along with the knowledge that Indigenous people don’t celebrate anything with gluttony and food waste, let alone following it up with a hunger game of shopping on Black Friday, I have no shortage of reasons to despise this day. So the irony was not lost on me, when last year, after a lifetime of resisting and resenting this day, the torch was passed on, and to me—the most unlikely Thanksgiving host in our family.

My reaction was equally ironic. I was just as surprised as anyone else to discover myself researching how to fold cloth napkins into pumpkin shapes and cooking multiple dishes, but the realization that the days of default gathering at my childhood home were over, made me eager to impress my parents. Yes, I wanted to reassure them we would thrive here, so close to my brother, in our new city, but it was more than that. I wanted to let them see that they had shown me how to keep the torch lit.

I found myself wishing my grandmother could see her daughter relaxing with mulled wine, instead of her usual solo marathon of cooking, while her children and grandchildren collaborated to serve her. I imagined the room filling with my ancestors. I could almost hear the generations of grandmothers proudly boasting to one another, “She gets that from me.” My brother, by far the most superior meat smith in the family, made the Thanksgiving turkey and the pernil; my mother brought her arroz con gandules all the way from New Jersey. There was stuffing and cranberry sauce, potatoes, and desserts. I’d even incorporated an Indigenous dish. I couldn’t get over how proud my ancestors must have felt watching us, and all at once, realization struck. The story they might have told us about this day was a lie, but all of the sufferings my ancestors endured was the origin story of the meal we were sharing. Just by gathering, we were writing the sequel. The one where the Indigenous return and thrive.

My 2020 table has not escaped estrangement. My parents are too high risk to travel, especially as out-of-state visitors. Still, I found myself surprisingly more grateful than I’ve ever been before. Despite the year’s trials, the torch is still burning and our story continues.

I am grateful that the empty spaces at my table are by choice and not by tragedy. My parents have already received the first dose of the vaccine, and I am grateful for the advancements in medical science without which we would be experiencing devastation at bubonic proportions. I am so excited by the promise of what reunions will feel like after such long separations, that the quiet winter holiday celebrations felt more precious than any of their predecessors.

I am grateful for the voices of the Indigenous who recently made themselves heard more loudly than ever. This next Congress will see more Native representatives than ever before in history, and there has even been an Indigenous appointment to our new Presidential Cabinet.

Most of all, I’m grateful to share this story in this space, because as a Taíno woman, I wasn’t even expected to exist, let alone write about it.

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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 2/9/21 Kapua Iao 2/9/21

Evoking Provocations from Patti Ross: A Conversation

Overwhelmed by the gentrification occurring from 2010 to 2013 in the areas around North Avenue and St. Paul Street in Baltimore, Maryland, Patti Ross recognized that the people from the neighborhood were being slighted by their own city. While the tenants preached their woes of displacement and fear of homelessness, Patti listened, wrote, and became an activist for their concerns in order to let them be heard. From this, St. Paul Street Provocations, Patti’s debut chapbook with Yellow Arrow Publishing, now available for PRESALE and ready for release in July 2021, was born.

Patti Ross graduated from Washington, D.C.’s Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and The American University. After graduation, several of her journalist pieces were published in the Washington Times and the Rural America newspapers. Retiring from a career in technology, Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the spoken-word artist “little pi.” Her poems are published in the Pen In Hand Journal, PoetryXHunger website, and Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue, among others. You can find Patti at littlepisuniverse.com or on Facebook and Instagram.

A Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Bailey Drumm, recently interviewed Patti about her upcoming chapbook and what her home on St. Paul Street meant (and means) to her. You can also hear more about St. Paul Street Provocations and Patti tonight (February 9) at 7:00 p.m. with the Wilde Reading Series, also featuring Yellow Arrow’s very own Gwen Van Velsor.

YAP: What was the catalyst for the creation of St. Paul Street Provocations?

I am an advocate for the homeless and marginalized. I have long considered myself an advocate and am a member of the Poor People’s Campaign. I wanted some of those [people] that I met when I lived one block off North Avenue, in a somewhat blighted neighborhood, [I wanted their] voices to be heard, for them to be seen in some way—recognized. When I would chat with my homeless or economically and mentally challenged friends, they would all reveal a feeling of invisibility to society’s majority class.

YAP: What does Baltimore, especially St. Paul Street, mean to you?

Baltimore is my adopted city. Once I learned its history—I understood it better. I understood why there were streets that appear to be allies. I understood what Penn Ave and North Ave meant to the community. St. Paul Street and its community allowed me to rediscover and shape who I am. I often go back to the area and just sit and reflect. I can see evolution and the lack of progress at the same time. There is romance there for me.

YAP: This collection seems incredibly personal, genuine, and emotion-provoking. How would you describe the feeling of seeing the pieces put together in one place?

It is exciting and surrendering at the same time. The collection is very personal. Most of the poems were written out of experience—either my own sights or the stories of others.

YAP: Why ‘Provocations,’ specifically? What does that word mean to you in the context of the title?

[Provocations] is important in the title because the poems are about frustrations, irritations. The poems speak to injustices and the affronts that those who are marginalized deal with daily.

YAP: Along with writing, I hear you are part of the spoken-word community, sharing your voice as the spoken-word artist “little pi.” How did you originally get involved with the spoken-word community?

I just jumped in. I went to the high school of performing arts in D.C., so I have known about performance poetry for quite some time. However, when I moved to Baltimore, I was looking for a way to share my thoughts and I started attending open mics. I was too scared to read at the time—I think I let my [age], being much older than those on stage, create a lack of confidence. Once I moved back to Ellicott City, an area I had lived for over 15 years, I felt comfortable performing and reading in front of an audience. Root Studio owned by Karen Isailovic was my first stage, and they held an open mic every Friday, so I started there. Once I built up my confidence I started going to Red Emma’s and that is where I saw and communed with some phenomenal slam champions and spoken-word artists.

YAP: How has spoken word helped you creatively, therapeutically, etc.?

Creatively it has helped [me] to discover and define my public persona. I am clear on what I want to advocate for and who. I also see it as a path to advocate and remind society of those on the fringes. Therapeutically? I’m glad you asked this. I get so much joy out of not just presenting my work but listening and sharing the work of others. I believe in a higher power and the stars of the universe. I think much of what we do as individuals is kismet.

YAP: What would you consider to be the heart or heat of this chapbook?

It is all about recognition of what is happening in the streets or our cities and the things we choose to ignore. It is about a haunting that we need to rectify. For example, the poem “Indemnity,” or sometimes I call it “Football,” is all about remuneration. In that poem, the idea of a football game—played by men whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and by men whose ancestors were former slaves prior to that war—the lineage of one group can be easily dismissed. In “Ghosting” families of color have accepted permanent separation for hopes of heritable betterment, right? Slave families were forcibly separated for the betterment of the slave owner and here we have post-slavery families willingly separating themselves.

YAP: Was there any particular piece that was hard to tackle and get to its final form?

“History Month” was tough. I was trying to say a lot in that piece, and I had a hard time finding a way to get it all in without sound preachy. I also understand the need for the naming of the month, but I do not like it. I would prefer the history of this country be told correctly without the revisions. I had conversations with elders who understood what I was saying but did not agree that the recognition month should be eliminated.

YAP: What does the featured mural (on the cover) mean to you, and to this collection? Were there any particular emotions it evoked, or direction of words it inspired?

The mural is the creation of Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn of jessie and katey; they are Baltimore-based muralists. They created the mural on the grounds of the dilapidated park across the street from my former apartment. (A side story is someone [once] planted rose bushes in the park and nurtured them until they grew beautiful blooms. I never saw anyone doing the work, but one day the roses were all in bloom and the park looked beautiful even with the trash and drug needles strewn between the grasses. The very next day, sometime in the early morning, when we woke up, the heads or blooms of all the bushes had been cut off and left on the ground. It was a sad and frightening sight.) I watched them daily create something beautiful out of something blighted. The mural is called “Walk the Line,” and in that neighborhood at that time, you very much had to walk a certain line. You had to be an insider. You had to know your way around. For me, the mural evoked a way out of whatever situation you [might] find yourself in.

YAP: Will you be including any other artwork of your own in the collection? If so, is it inspired by any particular poem or the collection as a whole?

I hope to have at least one piece of my artwork in the book and it is a bleeding or beating heart. In honor of George Perry Floyd, Jr.

YAP: Why did you choose Yellow Arrow to publish St. Paul Street Provocations?

I love the concept of a woman[-run] publishing company. As a feminist, I am always seeking opportunities to collaborate with like minds. I was elated when they decided to publish the book. I had been trying to figure out a home for the collection. In many ways, I had shifted in my writing, but the experiences still clung to me and I needed to find a place for the words to rest. I will never stop performing the poems until the injustices are corrected.

Something special though about [Yellow Arrow] is Ann Quinn—the poetry editor at [Yellow Arrow and] an elegant poet. I fell in love with a poem I heard her read from her book Final Deployment. The poem is called “Ma,” and it is about the ‘in between spaces’ the cracks, the voids where there is nothing. This resonated with me and my life on St. Paul Street. My apartment was in the front of the building on the first floor so I would sit in my very tall windows and watch people walk past and never look up. On the north side of North Avenue, was the beginning of Charles Village and daily, people were on a trek to get there—to Charles Village, not here, one block south of North Avenue. When I read Ann’s story of being a poetry ‘late bloomer,’ and I was even later than her (LOL), I thought perhaps [this] could be it. So, I sent the manuscript and prayed. I also loved the work that [Yellow Arrow] was doing in Highlandtown, creating [an] artistic community around writing. I regret I never made it to the house.

YAP: Though the chapbook is to be released in July, the prerelease coincides with tonight’s (February 9) Wilde Readings. Is there anything you would like to note in preparing for this event, especially given the current state of the world?

I think it is sad that [some of] these poems were written about a time roughly 10 years ago and, sadly, the [same] social justice points are still relevant today. We have made little progress in the way of providing for our sidelined brothers and sisters.

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Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Patti and Bailey for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. If you are a journalist/writer/bookstagrammer and interested in writing a review of St. Paul Street Provocations or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com.

Kapua Iao 2/2/21 Kapua Iao 2/2/21

Emerge into the Light: Reflections on Yellow Arrow’s 2021 Yearly Value

“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” Helen Keller

By Brenna Ebner

Board and staff at Yellow Arrow Publishing would like to share with you our recently voted on, 2021 yearly value: EMERGE.

You may have several questions about what a yearly value is and why we feel EMERGE supports Yellow Arrow’s mission. As an organization, EMERGE embodies the hopes and plans we have for 2021, and is the next step in our journey after last year’s theme of REFUGE.

To us, a yearly value is another way to unify our organization. It should be a term or a phrase that helps form everything we do to uplift the voices of women writers, from publications we choose to publish, themes we choose for the journal as well as the authors that we accept, and workshops we schedule, to non-Yellow Arrow authors/organizations/events we promote. Everything.

REFUGE was chosen because it reflected the goal we set for 2020, to create a place, a shelter, for our organization and our authors. REFUGE was embodied by Yellow Arrow House, and while the physical dream did not last, we were able to find a REFUGE within our organization. And we survived. We EMERGED.

Looking back at our overall mission and goals as a publisher, we are reminded of the rigidity writers face as they work hard to put themselves on paper, how they are told to be a certain way and say certain things. While university courses, universal style guides, and other publishers tell writers what is right and wrong, we work to bend the norms, where finding one’s own way is acceptable and celebrated. We welcome the voices marginalized by old systems to step forward and EMERGE. And with this new value, we focus on and continue to maintain our mission to grow and develop as a publishing company.

In 2021, Yellow Arrow will continue to expand in many different ways, such as moving our presence more online with our blog posts or by broadening our communication and support of authors and staff. And we are thrilled to welcome new staff members and authors as we continue to grow and evolve. We hope to find more prosperity personally and as part of a larger community with the changing of the year and all the answers it brings to the uncertainty of 2020. This new year will be an opportunity for all of us to EMERGE after relying on the REFUGE we found in our friends, family, neighbors, and communities. After dealing with so much, from a pandemic to a global movement for racial justice, we are ready to no longer focus on finding sanctuary but becoming something more from it while still appreciating the role REFUGE played for us when we needed it.

And this is exactly what we mean by EMERGE. We look onward to what comes next with optimism and courage and invite others to do the same. We will move forward with new voices, perspectives, thoughts, and understandings with anyone who also is ready to rise. We hope to host new conversations about what has been overlooked or ignored and appreciate being able to see what we didn’t before. Hopefully what EMERGES with us this year will educate and enlighten each of us.

Brenna Ebner is a recent Towson University graduate and Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street Literary Magazine, volume 69. She has interned at both Mason Jar Press and Yellow Arrow Publishing and is looking forward to continuing to grow as an editor and establish herself in the publishing world.

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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 EMERGE in a variety of ways: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (info@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@DonateYAP), or US mail (PO Box 12119, Baltimore, MD 21281). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels is greatly appreciated.

Kapua Iao 1/26/21 Kapua Iao 1/26/21

Submitting Poetry: Better the Second Time Around

From January 2021

By Sara Palmer

As a childhood and teenage poet, I dreamed of becoming a “real” writer. But as a young adult, I was not a risk-taker. Writing as a hobby was safe; writing as a profession, terrifying. I wanted a secure career, not one where I would have to struggle to make ends meet. So, in college, I majored in psychology and went on to get my PhD. As a researcher and psychotherapist, I was able to explore from another angle what I loved most in literature—the complexities of human character. And I did plenty of writing, albeit mostly professional articles and books.

I continued writing poetry on the side, inspired by my clients’ lives, my own experiences, and my love of nature. While taking an adult education poetry class, I had my first how-to lesson in submitting to journals. This was back in the pre-Internet age. There were fewer journals, and the competition was fierce. Submissions had to be typed and mailed with a formal cover letter and a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SSAE), for the return of poems not chosen for publication. Serious submitters kept stacks of envelopes addressed to multiple journals, with the cover letters and SSAEs already tucked inside; as each freshly rejected submission was returned, they would slip the poems into the next envelope in the stack and send it off again.

I lasted about a year at this game before buckling under the deluge of rejections. The silence of editors pushed my anxiety through the roof—there was no way to tell if my poems were simply not a good fit for a particular journal, or if they were total trash. With no external input, my mind raced around a groove of self-doubt and self-criticism, quashing my creativity. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I put away my envelopes and called it quits.

I didn’t take another poetry class for many years, but I never stopped writing. I charmed my friends and family with personalized rhyming poems, which were read aloud at parties to oohs and ahs and treasured by their recipients. And I wrote “serious” poems about love, loss, nature, family, and illness, which were read aloud once to my husband or a close friend, then shoved into a file cabinet, never to be seen again.

But in recent years, after retiring from my psychology career, I’ve reinvested myself in my poetry. I’ve discovered some forgotten gems in my neglected file cabinet, dusted them off and polished them up. And I’ve written many new ones. I’ve taken poetry classes, joined a writers’ group, and participated in a poetry reading. Through these experiences I’ve learned that my poems can stimulate memories, elicit emotions, and offer novel viewpoints—they are effective and worthy. Am I Emily Dickinson? No way. Sylvia Plath? Not hardly. But that’s OK, because as a 60-something, still-emerging poet, I no longer want to let perfection stand in the way of goodness—my goodness. And so, many years after quitting the submissions game, I’ve picked up my virtual envelopes and started over.

In my youth, I measured success by the kudos I received from experts and authority figures. Acceptance by an editor was as—or maybe more—important to me than whether ordinary readers would read and enjoy my work. Self-publishing was not an option—though I knew of remarkable self-published chapbooks, deep down in my approval-seeking soul, I saw this as a last resort for losers. Looking back, I’m ashamed of my addiction to external approval. I’m ashamed of my cowardice, letting fears of rejection keep me from submitting my work. Thankfully, I’ve matured now, and grown a tougher hide. I don’t worry about the judgment of editors. I don’t agonize over whether my poetry meets an elusive standard of artistic worth. My goals are simply to hone my craft, try my best, and get my poems out into the world for people to hear and read. And that’s incredibly liberating.

So, how do I do it? Well, electronic submission has simplified the process these days, but the number of journals is overwhelming. Since my primary goal is to get my poems out to readers, I’ve devised a simple starter strategy: find journals with an issue theme (I use Duotrope’s calendar for this), find poems in my collection (or write new ones) that fit the theme, edit or rework as needed, and hit submit! Then sit back, relax, and wait for the rejections to roll in!

Over the past year, I’ve submitted 19 poems to 11 journals and poetry contests. I’ve had 12 rejections and one publication—and six poems are still out for review. The joy of seeing one of my poems printed in a journal was indescribable. As for the rejections—let’s call them nonacceptances—I felt no pain. I’ve adjusted my expectations and changed my labels. I know that at most journals, most of the time, it’s most likely that the editors will not accept my poems. But this is not the same as rejecting them. And it’s certainly not the same as rejecting me.

Now I imagine the editor like the judge in a baking contest. She tastes hundreds of treats; each is unique, all are sweet. She can only give a prize to the one most pleasing to her palate. I submit poems of many flavors and trust that a few will be so delicious to the taster that she’ll grant them a place on her table. My inbox will no doubt remain filled with rejected confections. But I will be filled with the sweetness of (self-)acceptance, with the joy of sharing my work, and with pride in myself for sticking with it the second time around.

Sara Palmer wrote her first poem in second grade, and since then, poetry has been her vehicle for self-expression, healing, and enjoyment. During her career as a psychologist, Sara specialized in emotional and social aspects of disability, chronic illness, and caregiving. She published articles and chapters for professionals and several books for patients and families, most recently Living with HHT: Understanding and Managing Your Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (2017). Now retired from psychology, she devotes more time to creative writing and volunteer work. Sara is on the Boards of Cure HHT and Yellow Arrow Publishing. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and dog and enjoys close ties with her adult children, two young grandchildren, and numerous friends.

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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 1/19/21 Kapua Iao 1/19/21

An Expedition into the Nature of Our Hearts

Read Siobhan McKenna’s book review of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, published in Yellow Arrow Journal’s Vol. V, No. 3 (Re)Formation issue (fall 2020). Information about where to find World of Wonders and (Re)Formation is below.

Catalpa trees or catalpa speciosa can grow to be almost 60 ft tall, have “foot-long leaves,” and “can give two brown girls in western Kansas a green umbrella from the sun.” So begins Aimee Nezhukumatathil in the first essay of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments. This book of 28 lyrical essays weaves together fascinating tidbits about species in our natural world with Nezhukumatathil’s own journey of finding self-acceptance and the meaning of living in a country where being ‘other’ must be navigated on a daily basis. Through the essays, characteristics found within nature reflect Nezhukumatathil’s own qualities as she moves through everyday life.

In her included essays—most titled after a natural wonder and its scientific name—Nezhukumatathil acts as the narrator of a National Geographic documentary. As our guide, she begins in the landscape of her youth where she realized that growing up with a Filipina mother and Indian father set her apart from other children and would color nearly every aspect of her life in the years to come. From there, she whisks the reader from the sweet fields of love as she knew her husband was the one when he “didn’t blanch” at her adoration for the corpse flower (whose scent is reminiscent of “a used diaper pail left out in the late August sun” (70)) to the depths of motherhood where in swimming with a whale shark, she realized that she was “unprepared to submit [herself] so completely to nature” (89) with the implications of the worst occurring: a motherless son.

Nezhukumatathil, an author of four other collections of poetry, spellbinds the reader with her sensory imagery. She compares the petals of a touch-me-not to something that “look[s] as if someone crossed a My Little Pony doll with a tiny firework” (25) and envelops the reader in the smell of a monsoon: like the “wind off the wings of an ecstatic teeny bat” mixed with “banana leaves drooping low,” and “clouds whirring so fast across the sky” (58–59). In fact, every essay is saturated in lush prose that transports the reader alongside Nezhukumatathil as she is slowly sipping a dragon fruit cocktail in “Mississippi when the air outside is like a napping dragon’s exhalations” (115).

But the beauty found in her lyricism does not detract from the gravitas of the messages that underlie her essays. As a daughter of immigrant parents, Nezhukumatathil calls us to be better to one another when faced with diversity and to not succumb to tropes where racism can be chalked up as a sign of older times or the ignorance of children.

In her essay “Monodon monoceros,” she speaks of channeling the narwhal’s preference for swimming through “chunky ice rather than open seas” (35–36) when a boy on her school bus “flipped his eyelids inside out” (38) after she explained to him that her mom was in fact Filipino and not Chinese. And in “Ambystoma mexicanum,” she presents that remembering the smile of an axolotl (thin and tough) “can help you smile as an adult even if someone on your tenure committee puts his palms together as if in prayer every time he sees you off-campus, and does a quick, short bow, and calls out, Namaste!” (45) despite telling him repeatedly that she’s Methodist. Nezhukumatathil demands that we alter what we teach our children about those different from ourselves and how we internalize these differences as adults. By illustrating these cringeworthy and far too common microaggressions, she cries for us to be curious, not assumptive about the questions to which we do not know the answers.

Yet, instead of seeking pity, Nezhukumatathil burns with a firm resolve to find home wherever her feet seep into the soil by calling on the natural world around her. Similar to a red-spotted newt, which takes time “wandering the forest floor before it decides which pond to call home” (139), Nezhukumatathil moved from places such as Arizona, Iowa, and Western New York, before settling in Mississippi with her husband. And although her move from Western New York was precipitated after she became weary “of acquaintances at the post office asking about ‘my people,’” she wonders what would have happened if she saw a red-spotted newt in the midst of a bleak New York winter “skittering under the surface of the ice” (142) as they often do. Like the perseverant newt, Nezhukumatathil thinks she might have stayed, calling to mind that “all this time, my immigrant parents had been preparing me to find solace in multiple terrains and hoping to create a feeling of home wherever I needed to be in this country” (143).

Nezhukumatathil’s disposition toward finding goodness in the face of adversity and using the natural world as a guiding light is what ultimately defines her work and seems especially timely in light of our country’s current social and ecological climate. To me, Nezhukumatathil’s essays serve as a call to action as unmatched wildfires continue to ravage the west coast and racial discrimination is brought to the front of a long-overdue national conversation. Her skillful synthesis of these intense topics into short digestible anecdotes—while still channeling hope—is the precise writing we need right now for us to feel stirred to work toward the daunting tasks of preserving our earth and dismantling racial injustice in our country.

As the compilation winds down, Nezhukumatathil introduces the reader to a Casuarius casuarius or southern cassowary. These flightless birds are native to New Guinea and Australia and are relied upon to preserve biodiversity as a keystone species. Most interestingly, Nezhukumatathil teaches us, in her colorful, rhythmic prose, cassowaries have a call that can’t be heard by humans, but only felt—a “rumble” (148) deep in our bones. She ponders on this feeling: “suppose that boom shaking in our body can be a physical reminder that we are all connected” (149). This musing echoes again and again as the reader encounters each creature and sees a reflection of themselves staring back. Because, Nezhukumatathil warns, in order to reform how we commune with human beings—nature—we must remember that all that is precious in our world will be lost if we do not slow down and feel the vibrations of the earth; feel the beat of each other’s hearts.

Paperback and pdf copies of (Re)Formation are available in the Yellow Arrow bookstore or through most online bookstores. Book of Wonders was published by Milkweed Editions (2020; 184 pages). For more information, visit milkweed.org/book/world-of-wonders.

Siobhan McKenna is a middle child and a lover of bike-packing and practicing yoga. She enjoys writing essays, poetry, and long-winded letters to friends. For the past nine years Siobhan has lived in the charming city of Baltimore, but beginning in the spring she will start work as an ICU travel nurse—moving to a different city every three months to work, write, and explore all that this crazy, broken, and beautiful country holds. You can follow her on Instagram @sio_han.

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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 1/12/21 Kapua Iao 1/12/21

Allow Women to Be Strong

By Linda M. Crate

I happen to deeply love the Avatar series. I started by watching Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. What I’ve noticed, however, is that some of those in the fandom are really sexist. They call Korra weak and they point out all of her flaws while giving male characters the benefit of the doubt, excusing their bad behavior.

Korra is a girl who is powerful and faces not only tough battles against tough adversaries but she has to fight against PTSD, depression, and other traumas. Yet she does so. She thinks it is weak to ask for help (which is honestly a trait of hers that I relate to) despite having friends that are willing and able to help her. She learns, in the end, to lean on her friends for strength, and becomes even stronger for it.

It is rather disheartening to me that women, strong women, are often seen as weak or hated simply because they are not men. People act as if we’re not all flawed, imperfect beings trying to live our best lives. They will try to pick away at our strength and our power because the fact that we can still go on despite all the situations in life that try to break us is terrifying to them.

I’ve experienced this as a woman writer—I sometimes am not taken seriously because of the subject matter I write about. When I do write about serious or heavy topics in some poems and about love in other ones, the love poems are sometimes the ones that are picked up.

I once wrote about the man who attempted to assault me, only to have a male editor tell me that it made him feel nothing. I cannot tell you how angry that made me—like the suffering of another person doesn’t make you feel anything? The editor then proceeded to tell me to send him more writing when I could write well. If that’s not insult to injury, I don’t know what it is.

Women aren’t all whimsical and romantic creatures that can only write about sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes talking about the dark things that have happened to me actually helps heal me, and strong people need places where they can be vulnerable. In society, I think this is a huge problem. Emotions are seen as weaknesses. They are not. Women should be able to express themselves, men should be able to express themselves; we should all be respected for the things that we feel. I feel like people let men publish things that are just mediocre or don’t make me feel anything, but a woman sometimes is expected to be completely flawless and exquisite to even get noticed as a writer.

Women should be able to write about the things that they want to write about and still be respected.

I want to write about things other than love because love isn’t the only thing I’ve experienced in life.

We deserve to be seen as something other than lovers. Women deserve to be seen for our strength, our fight, our ferocity, and our ability to stand tall despite everything that tried to break us.

Women are strong, they are powerful, and our voices deserve to be heard no matter what we’re talking about. We need to stop discriminating against people based on their gender. We all have talents and abilities that can be strengthened and become better with time, and we all deserve that chance.

I am not weak because I am a woman, but you might be weak if you believe someone is weak for being a woman.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian born in Pittsburgh but raised in Conneautville. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest two which are the samurai (October 2020) and More Than Bone Music (March 2019). She also is the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (June 2018) and two micropoetry collections. Recently, she has published two full-length poetry collections, Vampire Daughter (February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (February 2020). Follow her on Facebook, Instagram @authorlindamcrate, or Twitter @thysilverdoe.

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

Kapua Iao 1/5/21 Kapua Iao 1/5/21

Rejection\Acceptance

By Courtney Essary Messenbaugh

Originally written November 2020

This is not a story about 2020 and its discontents; at least not in the way we’re all so accustomed at this point. However, it does start in January of 2020, when I wrote down the following goal: I would submit at least three poems a month to literary publications. Small, but achievable, exactly how I like my goals.

Prior to that moment, I’d spent years jotting down disheveled words in scattered notebooks, hoping they’d someday morph into complete literary pieces that sang. I had taken one formal poetry class and being a writer had long been an aspiration that I dared not even utter because it involved risk and possible, even probable, failure. My life had theretofore been the result of a series of actions based on what I felt was expected of me and what would provide income and consistency. I had gotten a good education and followed a path of sensibility and safety, but had never taken the time to think about what really made me tick or what would truly sustain me.

Adulthood has a knack for kidnapping dreams sometimes and I had let it take off with several of mine. But, as I inched toward middle age, I began to contemplate the value of my time and knew that I needed to make some changes. I had spent much of my adult life with Stockholm syndrome, entranced by the gleam of superficial expectations and status, but never fulfilled, and knew it was time to try to rescue my dreams that still lingered.

Writing was scary because it was new. I was unproven, a total novice. Comfort and perceived expertise were not crutches on which I could rely. It was humbling and incredibly uncomfortable, but I began to reject the notion that failure was not an option. Failure was exactly the option I needed to start breaking free of the captors that had held me hostage for so long. I decided to reject my old way of looking at the world and start writing. In this sense, my writing was born of rejection.

Although the rejection of my own stale worldview felt like a triumphant way to leap into a writing career, the rejection of my actual writing was something altogether different. As I began to submit poems, I became intimately involved with this other sort of rejection. My poetry—those carefully honed pieces of me that I had put onto the page—were being denied left and right. For example, I’ve so far submitted a total of 94 poems this year and received exactly two acceptances. That’s about a 98% rejection rate. If I were in school, I’d have an A+ in Rejection.

Initially, all of this rejection felt personal. It felt like a referendum on the validity of my innermost thoughts and ideas. It even felt like a referendum on who I am as a person. It roused that lifelong voice that’s always casually simmering with “Am I enough? Am I good enough?” and turned it into a loud and consistent chorus. That voice really starts to bellow when I read other poets’ work. There are some poets writing today whose work is miraculous, whose work I will never match.

And that’s OK. The more I read of them, the more I want to create.

As time has gone on this year (and my goodness, time has gone on and on and on!), I have begun to meet my rejections with acceptance. The very thing I want—external acceptance—is the very thing I need to internally embrace. Now, all of these rejected poems later, I remember the buoyancy of the two acceptances and even have held on to several of the more personal and kind rejections. I’m living a duality of rejections: the kind it took for me to start writing and the kind I get about my writing.

As I move into this rejection\acceptance mindset, I have come to rely on two virtues: patience + persistence. Both have turned out to be quite useful in 2020 (for all kinds of reasons, you might relate . . .), and I know I will need them just as much, maybe even more, in 2021. I recently walked away from the safe, income-giving job I had been clinging to for the past 13 years and am going to throw more of myself and my time into writing this new year. I’m terrified. But I’m open. Rejection will be the proof that I’m trying. Persistence will be the way I tell myself to keep writing, keep rewriting, keep reading, keep learning, keep submitting, keep expanding. Persistence will be the muscle memory that every rejection is a tiny step toward possibility.

Not getting rejections, would mean that I’m not trying. And if I’m not trying, then there doesn’t seem to be much point of anything. Trying is enough. I am enough. And some days, I’m even starting to believe that.

Courtney Essary Messenbaugh currently lives in Colorado and delights in the blanket of neon blue sky there. Her work has appeared in the Yellow Arrow Journal and FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art. You can find her on Instagram @courtneyessary and Twitter @courtney_essary.

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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 12/22/20 Kapua Iao 12/22/20

The Light is on its Way: A Thank You to Family and Friends

Dear supporters, authors, readers, and staff,

We began the year with the theme of RESILIENCE for Yellow Arrow Journal. Little did we know at that time how important the quality of resilience would be to all of us this year. The last two issues of Yellow Arrow Journal—HOME and (Re)Formation—were also timely, as well as cathartic, for our staff. And we hope each issue, each piece of writing, provides the same sense of hope to our supporters, authors, and readers, now and in the future. This year has pushed us to accept change and work even harder to ensure that women writers are heard and valued. With change comes growth and with growth comes a new version of the self. As Bailey Drumm points out in her review of Michelle Obama’s Becoming in (Re)Formation, “You must own your story. No one else can for you. Approach the world as it should be, rather than complain about the world as it is. That’s how change is created. We learn from each other, and in learning we transform.”

Despite everything thrown at us this year, we have reformed and reshaped ourselves and are proud of all that we have accomplished over the past 12 months. And it is all thanks to you. We would like to send a huge thank you to everyone who began this journey with us, joined this journey with us, and have yet to find their way to Yellow Arrow. We appreciate all the volunteers, submitters, authors, readers, and donors who have found their way to our (now virtual) doors.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch A Reformative (Re)Formation Reading, please do. Put a face to the words you read. Hear from the authors themselves, about the duality of formation and reformation. Champion our four incredible 2020 Writers-in-Residence, who faced a mountain of obstacles themselves but still managed to create their insightful publication and reading launched earlier this month. Pick up a copy of Smoke the Peace Pipe and the samurai from the Yellow Arrow bookstore today. Learn more about the strengths of these authors and how putting pen to paper can be part of the healing process. And finally, congratulate our 2021 Pushcart nominees who did all the hard work; we are happy to support them, now and in the future.

Look for Ellen Reynard’s upcoming chapbook No Batteries Required to be released in April 2021 and our next journal issue, a special topic issue we are extremely proud of, in May 2021, as well as several other publications slated for release throughout the year. And please keep an eye out for upcoming publication opportunities on the horizon that have yet to be announced. In the short term, workshops continue to be on pause, except for the excellent “A Year in Poetry” with Ann Quinn. Be sure to reserve your spot for the final two sessions on January 2 and February 6. Stay tuned for workshop announcements for 2021.

Yellow Arrow depends on the emotional and financial support of those who value our work; your continued support means everything to us. Donations are appreciated via Paypal (info@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@DonateYAP), or US mail (PO Box 12119, Baltimore, MD 21281). You can further support us by purchasing one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore (check out our Overstock SALE!), joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook or Instagram, or subscribing to our YouTube channel.

Once again, thank you for supporting independent publishing and women writers.

Sincerely,

Yellow Arrow Publishing

Yellow Arrow 12/15/20 Yellow Arrow 12/15/20

An Interview with Eva Niessner

Interview from fall 2020

Our fall 2020 marketing intern, Elaine Batty, recently interviewed author Eva Niessner. Eva is a writer living in Timonium, Maryland. Her work has been featured in Baltimore Magazine, Grub Street Literary Magazine, Phemme, and Crepe & Penn. She teaches English at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Huge thank you to Eva for sharing her insights with Elaine and for sharing her story as a writer.

EB: How did you get started as a writer? Do you have any favorite writers or any you draw inspiration from?

I know this is going to sound pretentious, but I don’t really ever feel like I ‘got started.’ I just was. Writing is as much an aspect of my identity as it is something that I do. That doesn’t mean I was naturally a fantastic writer with no practice and never had to learn or put in any effort, of course. It just means that learning and growing felt completely natural. I think of a baby just learning to walk. The baby isn’t born walking, and it takes a lot of stumbling and plopping over and whacking its head on the coffee table to go from crawling to running. But the baby never worries or wonders, “Wouldn’t it be great to be a walker?” It just happens. That’s kind of how I feel about developing as a writer. I had to smack my head on a lot of metaphorical coffee tables, but I always knew that’s what I would be. Even when I feel doubt or angst about a specific piece, I have very rarely doubted that I am a writer.

I think Mary Roach of Stiff fame might be one of my biggest inspirations, period. She really did set the tone for balancing the funny and the weird and the informative, and the qualities that I want people to associate with me are funny, weird, and informative. So she’s quite an idol of mine. If I could write any creative nonfiction piece half as entertaining as her stuff, I’d die happy. I’ve also been a huge fan of David Sedaris for many years, though ‘fan’ has sort of shifted into a Deadhead-ish follower (I’ve been to readings in three states) and then into a loose friendship.

EB: What do you think the implications of being a woman writer/woman in the literary world are and what does this mean to you?

For a long time, I didn’t really think about this. I spent my youth reading female authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Madeleine L’Engle, Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, and Judy Blume, and so it took me a long time to recognize that there was really anything distinctive or unique about making it as a woman writer. That’s a privilege of my age, I think, being a child of the girl-power 90s. I grew up in a household where my ambitions to write were deeply and loudly encouraged, and then I had a lot of fantastic female writing teachers and professors. But as I grew up I realized how much intersectionality mattered and how necessary it was to go looking for more [women-created] works. A woman of color writing about her experiences, or an immigrant woman writing about her experiences, or a queer woman writing about her experiences—these are not really taught in schools as frequently. Maybe you’ll read Zora Neale Hurston in high school, or maybe you’ll read Amy Tan. That’s often it. It usually takes having a special teacher who will encourage you to go further and seek out the kind of books that aren’t part of the curriculum. I never saw my own queerness in anything I read in high school, only in books I was guided toward or that I discovered on my own. And I still got far more representation than many. As a white woman, I know it’s so easy to get complacent and think, “Oh, I read plenty of women writers.” Sure, but if you’re leaving out works by women of color, or queer women, or trans women, or women from other religions or cultures or backgrounds, you’re only broadening your horizons slightly.

One of the areas I’ve seen more debate over the role of women writers is in fan fiction. I write quite a bit of that, and often there’s a weird stigma given to adult women who choose to do it. You sometimes see criticism that’s essentially, “Don’t you have kids to take care of?” when an adult woman wants to write, like, erotic fan stuff. I’d love to see a shift in that thinking that says women are either homemakers or deviants. I certainly don’t think of myself as either of those.

EB: What are your favorite things to write and why?

For a long time I pretty much only wrote fiction. Then in college and graduate school I was reading a lot of memoirs and creative nonfiction pieces, and that just clicked perfectly. I love talking about myself, but I am also wildly intrigued by trivia facts. My whole family is like this. We’ll just sit around and quiz each other. Creative nonfiction is a great way to just muse about trivia for me. You can take your obsession du jour and expand on your thoughts. Somewhere along the way, that blob of rambling and opinion can be shaped, like potter’s clay, into something that’s actually interesting and cohesive. That’s so rewarding to me—seeing all of my random thoughts and bits and lines that I was proud of actually connect and become a full and vibrant work. It’s almost like . . . the good version of [the] imposter syndrome, the feeling that only you know how rough and random it started out. Someone can read it and say, “Oh this is so well-done,” and you can sit there and think, heh, this used to just be a bunch of facts about birds that I taped together and now look at it.

EB: What is your writing process like and what do you do to get motivated?

When I took writing classes, I would always feel like a real loser when I’d learn about how, I don’t know, Ernest Hemingway would get up at 5 a.m. and write until noon every day and then go sport fishing or punch someone in the face over and over until it was dinnertime. I never had the kind of discipline to get up early and write, and I suspect I never will. It took a long time for me to realize that you don’t have to do things a certain way to get results. I’m not a morning person, and I do almost all of my writing in the evening, after I’m finished working for the day and I don’t have that stuff hanging over me.

I usually get ideas when I’m driving to a very familiar place or washing dishes or when I’m in the middle of any fairly mindless task. There’s something great about being in that mode, with your body on autopilot and then your brain allowed to wander. I usually let an idea simmer for a long time. The story I wrote for this newest issue of Grub Street, for instance, “Ballad of the Weird Girl,” that was maybe a year and a half in the making. Originally, I was just going to write about how weirdly connected I felt to true crime podcast hosts because I would listen to them talk all night and their voices became so familiar to me. But I started working backward and thinking about, well, why would that kind of thing be so appealing to me in the first place? So that was how that came about.

EB: In what ways do you think writers, specifically female writers, can change the world?

Something that I think is a huge problem in the world of writing in general, though it also applies to movies and TV shows and things like that, is the idea that men are the default and that anyone can project their own hopes and dreams and fears onto a male character, while female characters are somehow only for women. I don’t disagree with the idea that a person who doesn’t identify as a man can connect to and love and empathize with a male character. I do all the time! But there’s an assumption that starts when kids are little, that boys will not like stories about girls because they can’t relate. Well, we can’t relate to anything we’re not exposed to.

To the actual question, then—I think female writers specifically can change the world by not compromising their vision or experience or their stories because they’re ‘girl stories.’ The more ‘girl stories’ that get put out into the world, the more readers will realize how rich and different and worthwhile they are.

EB: Where can our readers find your work?

I’ve been published in Grub Street twice as well as several online journals and zines—Crepe & Penn and Phemme. Right now, I’m hoping to wrangle some short pieces of nonfiction into a collection.

Elaine Batty is a student at Towson University graduating with a BS in English on the literature track. Her poetry has been featured in the College of Southern Maryland’s Connections literary magazine. In her free time, she enjoys reading all genres of fiction, writing poetry, and playing with her two cats, Catlynn and Cleocatra. Elaine’s two real passions are literature and travel, and she plans to look for a job following graduation that will allow her to pursue both full time. We at Yellow Arrow want to send a huge thank you to her for all her hard work over the past few months. Mahalo nui loa!

You can follow Eva Niessner on Instagram @asongoficeandeva.

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

Yellow Arrow 12/10/20 Yellow Arrow 12/10/20

Meet the 2021 Yellow Arrow Publishing Pushcart Prize Nominees!

The Pushcart Prize honors the incredible work of authors published by small presses and has since 1976. And since then, thousands of writers have been featured in its annual collections—most of whom are new to the series. The Pushcart Prize is a wonderful opportunity for writers of short stories, poetry, and essays to jump further into the literary world and see their work gain recognition and appreciation.

The Prize represents an incredible opportunity for Yellow Arrow 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. We are so proud of everyone we publish at Yellow Arrow. Without further ado, let’s meet the 2021 Yellow Arrow Pushcart Prize Nominees!

Crate 3x3.jpg — Linda M. Crate

“i will never give this up,” *the samurai*
~when i first recalled her, i remembered who i truly was; a fierce, courageous fighter~

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian born in Pittsburgh but raised in Conneautville. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest two which are the samurai (October 2020) and More Than Bone Music (March 2019). She also is the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (June 2018) and two micropoetry collections. Recently, she has published two full-length poetry collections, Vampire Daughter (February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (February 2020). Linda is also a past Pushcart nominee. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

You can learn more about Linda from her July 2019 Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W. or by reading her written words in Yellow Arrow Journal’s COURAGE and FREEDOM, or in the samurai.

Courtney Essary Messenbaugh, “Our Hearth,” Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. V, No. 2 HOME — Courtney Essary Messenbaugh

“Our Hearth,” *Yellow Arrow Journal*, Vol. V, No. 2 **HOME**
~Engorging itself to inspire / Howling monsters, thick with legend, while / Awaiting its next set of footprints.~

Courtney Essary Messenbaugh is a practiced dilettante and has been everything from a waitress to a political fundraiser to a bond analyst. She has climbed a big mountain in Tanzania, lived in Switzerland, New York, and Chicago, and loves to laugh and try new things. She currently lives in Colorado and delights in the blanket of neon blue sky there. She is mother to three wildling children, wife to one husband, and best friend to one Muppet-looking dog. Her work has appeared in FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, at Motherwell, and of course, Yellow Arrow Journal.

Deja Ryland

“Sand,” *Yellow Arrow Journal* Vol. V, No. 3 **(Re)Formation**
~The sand reminds me that there are compositions—imperishable histories—that will always align our stories together.~

Deja Ryland is an emerging writer who has recently graduated with her BS in English from Towson University. With boundless curiosity, she writes to ask questions, reflect on experiences, and start conversations. She loves adventure which sparks her love for reading, writing, traveling, and eating. She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

Taina (1).jpeg — Taína

“Killing Ty,” *Yellow Arrow Journal* Vol. V, No. 1 **RESILIENCE**
~I’m killing her. Right here. Right now. This string of words is her final dagger. The Smithsonian calls it Paper Genocide, the destruction of my name.~

Taína is a Baltimore-based Higuaygua Taíno writer, on a mission to write the Taíno culture into existence the same way the colonizers have attempted to erase it: one word, one Taíno at a time. Find out more at TainaWrites.com.

You can learn more about Taína in her May 2020 Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W. or through VIRTUAL Voces Latinas.

Weaver, Roz_bw.jpg — Roz Weaver

“Smoke the Peace Pipe,” *Smoke the Peace Pipe*
~We, wild spirits, being all at once / in this one lifetime, / found here like some long lost siblings, / our everything alive.~

Roz Weaver is a spoken-word performer and internationally published poet living in West Yorkshire, England. She has been published in a number of journals, zines, and anthologies, including most recently with The Resilience of Being, Disquiet Arts, and Token Magazine. Her work has been on exhibit with Chicago based Awakenings Art Gallery and London Design Festival, and she has performed at Leeds International Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her first poetry collection, Smoke the Peace Pipe, was released by Yellow Arrow in August 2020.

You can learn more about Roz by reading her written words in Yellow Arrow Journal’s COURAGE, DOUBT, and FREEDOM, or in Smoke the Peace Pipe. Roz also taught a sold-out class for Yellow Arrow called Poetry as Therapy.

Thank you to everyone who supports these women and all writers who toil away day after day. Please show them some love in the comments below or on Yellow Arrow’s Facebook or Instagram.

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, visit yellowarrowpublishing.com.

Kapua Iao 11/19/20 Kapua Iao 11/19/20

Shaping and Reshaping: Yellow Arrow Journal's (Re)Formation

“I think of the trees and how they simply let go . . .” From The Journals of May Sarton: Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Drawing Deep, and Recovering by May Sarton

Yellow Arrow Publishing, like many others, has had to adapt and reform during the current, tumultuous times we are living in. This (re)formation has been a challenge as well as a pleasure, and our contributing authors are prepared to share their experiences of formation and change with the world. The release of Yellow Arrow Journal’s (Re)Formation issue, Vol. V, No. 3 (fall 2020), is an opportunity for Yellow Arrow, the included authors, and all our readers to come to terms with the state of the world along with the state of ourselves. The theme (Re)Formation holds a certain duality that sets this issue apart from previous journals. Through varying takes on formation as well as reformation, contributors express the ways they have been formed and reformed over time. The era we are living through renders this theme especially pertinent and we at Yellow Arrow hope you will find some peace within this issue from the comfort of your own HOME.

Yellow Arrow Journal continues to support and inspire women in the literary arts by featuring poetry, creative nonfiction, book reviews, and cover art from any and all who identify as women. This issue of the journal serves as a collection of thoughts upon the way identity is shaped and perhaps reshaped throughout the hardships and joys of life. And by including synonyms for formation and reformation at the end of each piece, Yellow Arrow Journal authors are able to convey a sense of what these terms mean to them and just how much duality this theme holds in and of itself. Through stories of tragedy, hope, and soul-searching, we at Yellow Arrow hope this issue will inspire you to continue to evolve and to never stop pushing forward.

Paperback and PDF versions of (Re)Formation are now available at the Yellow Arrow store. You can also search for Yellow Arrow Journal or Yellow Arrow Publishing on any e-book or anywhere you purchase books. We would also like to invite everyone to our prerecorded A Reformative (Re)Formation Reading, which will be released on our YouTube Channel (and shared through Facebook and Instagram) November 25 at 6:00 p.m. The reading will feature several of our authors from this issue and will be hosted by our poetry editor, Ann Quinn.

Finally, if you would like to share any encouragement for our incredible staff or the (Re)Formation authors please do so through Facebook/Instagram or even in the video comments when the reading is released.

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

Kapua Iao 10/13/20 Kapua Iao 10/13/20

the samurai by Linda M. Crate: discovering your strength within

the samurai cover_Squarespace full front and back.jpg

Yellow Arrow Publishing is overjoyed to kick off the fall with the release of a new chapbook, the samurai, by Linda M. Crate. 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 and a multitude of writing workshops, community events, and volunteering opportunities. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting Linda in all her writing and publishing endeavors.

The word ‘samurai’ can loosely be translated into meaning “those who serve.” In Linda’s chapbook, illustrated by Ann Marie Sekeres (annmarieprojects.com), this interpretation is especially pertinent. This collection of poems speaks of rebirth, reincarnation, and lessons from the past as a means to a better future. For Linda, this is through a past life discovered in a very vivid dream that had both awed and confused her.

Within this dream, Linda was visited by a strong, courageous woman—a samurai—who showed her how to listen to her past, learn from her mistakes, and inherit the future she deserves. The Onna-bugeisha (female martial artist) were female samurai. They were a type of female warrior who mostly belonged to the Japanese nobility. This collection was titled “the samurai” because this is what the woman in the dream wished to be known as. She was a fighter and a survivor, as is Linda.

The 21 poems included in this chapbook encourage readers to dive deep within themselves and to use the past as a tether to the right path for the future. The cover art was inspired by the 19th-century Japanese woodcut tradition and several prints by artists such as Utagawa Kunikiyo that focused on rooftop fighting and falling warriors. Butterflies represent the souls of the dead which inspired Ann Marie to include them both in the cover and interior illustrations.

Linda is a Pennsylvanian born in Pittsburgh but raised in Conneautville. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is More Than Bone Music (March 2019). She also is the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (June 2018) and two micropoetry collections. Recently, she has published two full-length poetry collections, Vampire Daughter (February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (February 2020). Linda is also a two-time Pushcart nominee.

Paperback and PDF versions of the samurai are now available from the Yellow Arrow Publishing bookstore! You can also search for the samurai wherever you purchase your books including Amazon and most distribution channels. Connect with Yellow Arrow Publishing, Linda, or Ann Marie on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to share some love for this chapbook. To learn more about Linda and the samurai, check out our recent interview with her.

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Kapua Iao 10/2/20 Kapua Iao 10/2/20

Meet a Board Member: Sara Palmer

Interview originally from fall 2019

We at Yellow Arrow Publishing are thrilled to introduce one of our board members, Sara Palmer! She is our Grants Manager. Sara is a retired psychologist and author who has embraced her love for creative writing and generously wants to support other women who write by being involved with the Yellow Arrow community. Our Poetry Editor, Ann Quinn, asked Sara a few questions to introduce her to the rest of our community:

YAP: What can you tell us about your relationship with Baltimore?

I moved to Baltimore County with my husband in 1983, after living in New York and Seattle. We didn’t expect to stay here “forever” but Baltimore turned out to be a good fit for us. I found great opportunities as a psychologist with a specialty in physical disability; over the course of my career, I worked at Johns Hopkins, Sinai Hospital, and in private practice. I’ve been active in various local professional and community activities such as serving in the past on the board of directors for Maryland Psychological Association, Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, The League for People with Disabilities—and now Yellow Arrow Publishing. I attend many concerts, plays, and art exhibits in Baltimore. Some people say that Baltimore is cliquey but I’ve made wonderful friends here. In 2008, my husband and I moved to Federal Hill, where we are active members of the Light Street Library book club and enjoy easier access to theater and other cultural events.

YAP: How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow?

I got involved with Yellow Arrow when I received an email from the Y:ART Gallery, announcing that they were hosting a series of writing workshops organized by Yellow Arrow. I had been on Y:ART’s mailing list after attending an art exhibit there in which one of my friends had some paintings. I was just starting to take creative writing courses (again) and I quickly signed up for the three-session series. The classes were inspiring and I was impressed by Gwen [Van Velsor] and Ariele’s [Sieling] mission, vision, and dedication.

YAP: What would you like to share about reengaging your creative writing after retirement?

In addition to the classes I took through Yellow Arrow, I took classes last year in self-expression and playwriting at the Everyman Theatre. I had never explored writing a play before, but I found that I liked writing scenes and building characters with dialogue. I’m continuing to work on a couple of “scene collections” from which I hope to create a short play. I joined a writers group at the Light Street Library and also started meeting informally with two friends who are writers, to share work and get feedback. This enabled me to begin revising some of my old poetry with a fresh perspective and to write some new poems. I participated in Yellow Arrow’s First Friday Literary Event last year, reading three of my poems. I am exploring the personal essay and keeping a notebook of ideas and projects. My biggest challenge is disciplining myself to write every day.

YAP: Anything else you would like to share?

My husband and I are both retired now. We spend a lot of time visiting our sons and our two grandchildren. I volunteer as a Board Member for Cure HHT, a nonprofit advocacy foundation for a rare genetic blood vessel disease. When I’m not volunteering or writing, I like to hike, bike, read, walk my dog, knit, cook, and hang out with friends.

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We are so fortunate to have Sara, with her experience and passion, on our team, and look forward to reading more of her work. 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 9/12/20 Kapua Iao 9/12/20

the samurai: a conversation with Linda M. Crate

They say to let go of your past, but I think that this is a mistake.

Sometimes the past tethers you on the right path for your future.

The word ‘samurai’ can loosely be translated into meaning “those who serve.” In Linda M. Crate’s soon to be released chapbook, the samurai, illustrated by Ann Marie Sekeres (annmarieprojects.com), this interpretation is especially pertinent as her collection of poems stems from a dream in which a samurai appeared and inspired her to heal from past experiences to activate her full potential. Linda’s upcoming Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook about rebirth, past lives, and learning from experience is now available for PRESALE and will be released October 2020.

A Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Siobhan McKenna, interviewed Linda about the samurai, reading messages from our dreams, and learning to choose how we move forward after darkness threatens to saturate our lives.

YAP: The basis of this chapbook came from a vivid dream you had, could you speak a little more about that?

When I have dreams, most of them I remember in bits of pieces, but I don’t really remember them very well. But the [samurai] in [this] dream was very quiet and subtle—she had a presence. I’ve [even] had a few daydreams about the figure from this book. She is very prominent when I see her in my dreams, but the one dream I had at first was just the one where she’s fighting for her emperor—the ruler of her country—and ends up falling off the roof. The dream was terrifying because I felt the falling [of the samurai] and it triggered something. I woke up scared and had to remind myself that I wasn’t falling off a building. It was very lifelike and it felt like it was happening to me in the moment.

YAP: Why do you believe you were having these dreams?

I believe that we have past lives. I didn’t always believe that, which I talk a little bit about in the chapbook. And when a fellow student at school mentioned a past life, I thought, eh, I don’t know about that, but this dream was so powerful and she was so prominent that I thought, well you know maybe there is something to that. Because why else would I be having a dream about somebody who is so different from me and [had] a very different life? Now, sometimes [dreams] are just your subconscious babbling but sometimes they are messages.

YAP: What made you want to turn this dream into a collection of poems?

I thought that I needed to honor [the samurai]. I felt like I needed to put down in words what happened in my dream and make it more of a reality—I wanted to share my experience. And I feel like there are unexplainable things in life and connections that we don’t really understand, and I feel like our past lives could be key to parts of our personality.

YAP: Why did you think the format of a series of poems rather than a short story served this dream better?

I think that with a short story you start at one point and then end up at another and what you originally set out to write isn’t always what comes out in the end, but you can get some of the concepts that you want in there. But ultimately, the characters take the reigns and make it theirs—at least mine do—mine are very vocal. So I thought I’m going to sit down and write this and see if this works. And I feel like as a cohesive form, [a series of poems] did work as a stream of consciousness [for me to convey] what I needed to say.

YAP: Zen Buddhism, introduced into Japan from China, held a great appeal for many samurai and in Zen Buddhism, there is a belief that salvation comes from within, which is a prominent theme in your chapbook. Did you think about this belief system as you were writing?

Oh very much so—I’m very Zen! In college, I took a lot of theology courses because I wanted to know what other cultures believed in. I wanted to know more about what people believed and why people are the way they are. I’m also very connected to nature, and I feel like we have to save ourselves. As much as we like the hero to save us, sometimes we have to be our own hero because there isn’t always going to be someone there for you. Unfortunately, people have let me down a lot in my life, and I’ve had to rely on myself. And in a way it’s sad, but I’m glad I’m this way because it [has made] me stronger.

YAP: Historically, samurai were mainly men, and female warriors were known by a different name [Onna-bugeisha]. Did you research more about Japanese culture after dreaming about the samurai woman and how did you navigate using this traditionally masculine term?

I did. I feel like [the term] samurai just captured how I felt about her and how she felt about herself. I know there is a different term, but why does it have to be that way? Why does it have to be that the man gets more recognition than the woman? Why does the woman have to be lower than a man? It was very important for me to place [the women in my dream] on equal footing, and I knew people were more familiar with samurai. It’s important to have a term that people understood. Some people might have found it interesting [to use the female term] while other people would’ve said, “I don’t know what that is.” A lot of people do their research, but then there’s others who just want something to read that they can relate to or are intrigued by.

YAP: In this chapbook, there is a theme of choosing “tranquility and places of hope” such as in the poem, “the kindest moonlight.” Do you think we have a choice when it comes to focusing on the light versus dark in our lives?

Oh, absolutely. I mean no one chooses to go through dark periods and dark phases, but I feel like there is always that little glint of hope, that little horizon, that light at the end of the tunnel. And I think if you try to focus your sight on your future and getting out of the present darkness—that’s a lot easier. If you dwell on the darkness, the bad times, the bad things, you’re going to feel like there’s anger dragging you down because there’s no hope. And I’ve never wanted to live in a world without hope. I’m the eternal optimist I guess. The one that’s always going to push forward; always going to believe that we can achieve better things and better worlds. You can’t choose if you have a mental illness or somebody dying, but you can choose to either dwell or choose to overcome. My mom told me when I was younger that you have two choices: you can be a victim or a survivor. So I’ve always chosen to be a survivor because I refuse to be in that vulnerable place where nothing can be better than this right now.

YAP: What are your thoughts on the cover image and how your chapbook is represented at first glance?

I absolutely adore the cover image. I think it's a good representation of my dream and of the content in the chapbook. I also love that the exterior has butterflies as they're representative of the idea of rebirth and reincarnation, which are also themes that I cover in the chapbook. I think the idea of connections [to the] past and present is nicely conveyed here. I really appreciate the time and input each of the editors took in trying to help me polish my book. I'm also thankful that Anne Marie was so receptive to my ideas and curious to understand the chapbook and the ideas that were in it. I think that's what makes the illustrations work so flawlessly with my words.

YAP: I know the interior images haven’t been released yet, but how do you think they relate to the themes in your book?

I think [the woman] is a good depiction of the strength and ferocity of a warrior—she also has that schooled face which doesn't betray her emotions, which is something that I touch upon in the chapbook. I think the interior [images work] well with not only the title, but my depiction of the woman in my dream.

YAP: In your profession, you write a great deal of fiction, how do you find the process of writing fiction versus poetry different and/or similar?

It’s different in that with poetry you can talk about yourself and anybody else in your life or situation. But when I’m working on novels or short stories usually a character comes to me and I build around a theme until it develops into something else. And they’re similar in a way because it is a process and it doesn’t always come out right the first time so you have to think [about] what works and what doesn’t work and go from there. But to me, it depends on the day and what I’m feeling—what mood I’m in. Sometimes I feel like writing more fiction and then there’s other days when poetry is what comes more naturally. It’s funny because people ask, “How do you decide?” and it’s just my mind has a switch and whatever the switch says is what we go with.

YAP: In the past, you have published with Yellow Arrow, why did you choose to publish with us again?

I always like them and their philosophy. I’ve always felt that they are very respectful of my work and me. I usually write darker themes and writing [for Yellow Arrow] allowed me to focus on something positive and [the samurai] is a pretty positive figure in my life so I wanted to see what I could come up with. It was a different experience for me and it’s good to challenge [myself] once in a while so that’s what I did.

YAP: What do you hope people take from the chapbook?

We can learn from the past, but our lives aren’t set in stone. If you are going through something negative in your life, it can get better. And sometimes you need to listen to that little voice inside your head that keeps telling you to go forward because it’s important to follow your dreams, to have hope, and begin again. As painful as it is to lose your old self, you have to in order to grow.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Linda and Siobhan for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Kapua Iao 9/1/20 Kapua Iao 9/1/20

Yellow Arrow Journal Submissions Now Open!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to announce that submissions for our next issue, fall 2020 (Vol. V, No. 3) are now open September 1–30 on the theme:

(Re)Formation

Spending the time to create something—to give shape to a place, a person, yourself, or an idea—is a significant step in life. Then imagine needing to reform it, make an improvement.

What does it take to shape or form something? Ourselves? How do we sustain what we form? Why is it meaningful?

How do we know when reformation is necessary? Why is it necessary sometimes? What can we gain through such a transformation?

Can a personal (re)formation become a community act? How? Why might this be necessary at times?

For more information regarding all journal submission guidelines, please visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/submissions. Please note that our guidelines have recently changed; read them carefully before submitting. To learn more about our editorial views and how important your voice is in your story, read About the Journal. Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling.

The journal is just one of many ways that Yellow Arrow Publishing works to support and inspire women through publication and access to the literary arts. Since its founding in 2016, Yellow Arrow has worked tirelessly to make an impact on the local and global community by hosting literary events and publishing writers that identify as women. Creating diversity in the literary world and providing a safe space is important to us. Yellow Arrow proudly showcases the voices of women from around the globe.

You can be a part of this mission and amazing experience by submitting to Yellow Arrow Journal, publishing full-length creative nonfiction and poetry chapbooks, joining our virtual workshops and events, volunteering, or donating today. Publications are available at our bookstore, on Amazon, or on any eReader. Click here for information about current and future changes to the Yellow Arrow family.

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Guest User 8/30/20 Guest User 8/30/20

Closed Doors, Open Hearts

Dear Yellow Arrow friends,

We are writing today to let you know about the conclusion of Yellow Arrow House. While the doors on our dream of creating a physical, communal space for writers to gather, learn, share, and create have closed, we assure you that our work supporting women writers and artists continues.

After a final blessing of the House last week, in gratitude for all the good energy and passion you all brought to the space, our Board of Directors gathered to reimagine, refine, and breathe life back into our original vision, which was to create a refuge for writers. This time, in a different way.

The community we’ve enjoyed being part of here in Baltimore, and especially in Highlandtown, has been truly restorative and inspiring. We want you to know the impact you’ve made on women writers everywhere by supporting their work. As our mission evolves, please know that we carry this same spirit of hospitality in our hearts and in our hands. And as always, we will let you know more about our shifts and transformations in the upcoming moments as transparency and inclusion always remain important in our hearts.

It has been a long and emotional road to finally let the dream of the House go. At the beginning of the year, we knew this was a risky endeavor with a high potential for failure. We did it anyway out of a desire to create a refuge for women writers. A place to gather and support one another. While the closing of the House is a combination of financial and staffing concerns, especially given the current worldwide pandemic, we also see this as a necessary opportunity to dismantle and start again as we have come to understand that we went about creating a “safe space” in a problematic way. We encourage you all, in your personal quests to support women, to embrace intersectional feminism as our lives and our hearts do overlap. If one of us faces a problem, we all must face that problem. We appreciate those that contributed to our collective wisdom process earlier in the summer, it has been extremely helpful and healing.

As our publication capacity expands, it is also changing. While our volunteer team will no longer be folding and stitching our publications by hand, we are excited to offer a full slate of chapbook releases through 2021 in addition to the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal. Learn more about self-healing from our first chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe by Roz Weaver, released earlier this month. Discover your inner warrior with Linda M. Crate in the samurai, to be released in the fall. Look also for our Writers-in-Residence 2020 publication as our four residents explore their year with pen and paper. And stay tuned for incredible heartfelt publications from our authors in 2021. As for the journal, we can’t help but feel we chose a meaningful theme for the next issue (fall 2020, Vol. V, No. 3; submissions open September 1-30): (Re)Formation. Especially now as everyone’s lives have been transformed, for better or worse, emotionally and physically, personally and communally. One final note about publications: we have decided to dissolve our journal subscriptions program (current subscriptions will be fulfilled) and focus on each issue, each group of authors. Check our website periodically as we begin updating and exploring our new options. Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling.

Logistically, everything that is currently on our calendar will remain in a virtual context. All workshops will continue online through 2021, including “A Year in Poetry” with Ann Quinn and “Elements of Story” with Ariele Sieling. We are also looking into adding new online workshop opportunities, which we will share as they emerge.

At the housewarming gathering back in January, we shared a nondenominational blessing together that we find even more relevant today as our focus shifts. Written by Alyssa Kaplan, former Vicar at Breath of God Lutheran Church in Highlandtown, we hope you find some comfort and hope in the prayer below.

As we gather today to honor this new chapter in the life of Yellow Arrow, we recognize that this is but one piece of the story of this place.
We honor this place and the fullness of its history. We honor the different families and businesses of 335 S Conkling. We acknowledge the ways that this place was a sacred vessel for those in its past, holding grief and joy, peace and conflict, anxiety and possibility.
We acknowledge that long before this land was dominated, divided, and commodified with street names and numbers it was cared for and treasured by the Piscataway people. In inhabiting this place we again remember that we inhabit their land. And we pray that this acknowledgement would transform our hearts and make us better partners with and protectors of our earth.
And so as we seek to bless the community that will grow here and the stories that will be shared here, we ask that this place would also give its blessing to us.
May this be a space of radical welcome and grace for all.
May this be a place where all may come to know the vital importance, and Holy uniqueness of their own story.
May this be a house which is attentive and responsive to the realities of the pain and suffering of its neighbors.
May this space become such a powerful holder of Divine creativity that once one enters here, they cannot help but see themselves in that same way--as beautiful vessels of Divine creativity.
May the justice cultivated in this community be an antidote to the sins of patriarchy, queer and transphobia, white supremacy, greed, and violence which infect our neighborhood, city, and world.
May this home offer rest to the weary, comfort to the hurting, inspiration to the stagnant, direction to the aimless.
May this place radiate love, warmth, peace and goodness.
In the name of the Holy Creating Spirit which enlivens our world we pray.
Amen.

With love,

Yellow Arrow Publishing Board of Directors

Gwen Van Velsor, Kapua Iao, Sara Palmer, Gina Strauss, Kerry Graham

Kapua Iao 8/12/20 Kapua Iao 8/12/20

Hope and Healing

Smoke the Peace Pipe

Yellow Arrow Publishing Releases a New Chapbook!

Baltimore, MD

A new chapter opens in the story of Yellow Arrow Publishing with the release of our first chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe, by Roz Weaver. Since its establishment in 2016, Yellow Arrow has devoted its efforts to support all women writers through inclusion in the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal, our Writers-in-Residence program, and a multitude of writing workshops and community events. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting Roz in all her writing and publishing endeavors.

Smoke the Peace Pipe is a collection of poems inspired by the author’s experience of trauma and how this settled in her body, sometimes as her own worst enemy. Through this chapbook, Roz encourages the possibility that we all can find hope and healing by showing up in the present moment, in the environment and with people around us, and through a shared appreciation of nature, spiritual exploration, and sacred connection with the Earth. By sitting and sharing a peace pipe with ourselves, we have an opportunity to bear what we thought was unbearable and make space for the possibility of a bigger picture. The 26 included poems bring every reader on a journey, from pain, trauma, and separation, toward recovery in the form of transformation, healing, self-love, and spirituality. The cover art by Joanne Baker was inspired by Roz’s poetry, the feeling of emotion, ideas and words, ebbing and flowing like an ocean. All-consuming but cleansing.

Roz is a current resident of West Yorkshire, England, working as a social worker and therapist while studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Teeside University. She began writing poetry in early 2017 as a solitary means of exploring her experiences of trauma and was subsequently published for the first time in January 2018. Roz then began developing some of her writing for spoken word. Her most recent work has been on exhibit with Awakenings, a Chicago-based arts collective of survivors of sexual violence, as well as the London Design Festival, and performed at Leeds International Festival and the renowned Edinburgh Fringe. Roz is currently teaching a (sold out!) Yellow Arrow workshop, “Poetry as Therapy,” in which classmates can explore the therapeutic aspects of poetry as a way of creatively expressing their thoughts and feelings. You can learn more about Roz in our interview with her from last month.

Paperback and PDF versions of Smoke the Peace Pipe are now available from the Yellow Arrow Publishing bookstore. You can also purchase paperback copies from Amazon and e-book copies from most distribution channels. You are welcome to leave reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, your own websites/platforms, or by sending us a direct email with your thoughts. Connect with Yellow Arrow Publishing or Roz on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to share some love for her chapbook. If you don’t have time to send a review, just know that we appreciate you.

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Yellow Arrow 8/4/20 Yellow Arrow 8/4/20

Literary Night 2020

On August 7, 2020 we had planned to host the 2nd annual Literary Night, a celebration of Baltimore area authors, writers, small presses, and literary organizations as part of the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk in partnership with Highlandtown Main Street, Highlandtown Arts District, and Southeast CDC. Check out highlights from 2019 here and here and here.

This year, since we are unable to gather in person, we’ve opted to share information on each of the literary organizations and authors who had planned to join us below. Please take a moment to learn about the vibrant literary scene right here in Baltimore and support them by reading their publications or spreading the word about what they do.

We’ve also organized a virtual reading with a wonderful group of local writers, which you can watch here: A Celebration of Local Authors.

Thank you for supporting our mission and the voices all around Baltimore!

Literary Organizations

Zora's Den Writers' Group is a sisterhood of Black women writers.

https://www.facebook.com/ZorasDen/?ref=page_internal

Screen Shot 2020-07-20 at 7.58.38 PM.png — Roots & Raíces

Roots and Raíces is a platform for artists, musicians, and activists to highlight, support, and celebrate immigrants in Baltimore through the arts and civic engagement. We also curate a rotating selection of artwork from local artists on our website in our online market and at our bi-annual EL MERCADO in Baltimore, MD.

Attracting over 2,000 visitors in our events, Roots & Raíces is becoming a recognizable platform in Baltimore. Although our events are diverse in programming, at the core of our work we embed civic action opportunities for the community to support immigrant communities both in Baltimore and nationwide. In addition to our events, we also have worked on a regular basis with over 58 students from 5 different high schools in developing their skills in art, design, event production, and advocacy.

Through our media platforms we collectively have over 3,000 impressions with our posts, stories, and promotions on a weekly basis.The success of work is best seen and heard from our community members who participate and attend our events and programming. We have received an abundance of positive feedback from the community. This work would not be possible without the generous support of our past funders.

https://www.rootsraices.org/about-us/

Screen Shot 2020-07-20 at 8.06.32 PM.png — Revolutionary Summer

A Revolutionary Summer is an intensive critical reading and writing program dedicated to shifting harmful narratives about Black women and girls through both the meaningful study and creation of art and the deliberate application of self-inquiry. We exist to keep Black girls whole, to balance the scales, to offer up a Nobel Laureate, radical painter, love song, and afro picked to perfection for every stupid, shallow representation of her. A Revolutionary Summer validates Black girl language and Black girl thought, Black girl hair and Black girl thighs. It traces, analyzes, justifies, and celebrates Black girl herstory. It contributes forcefully, unapologetically to a sound and solid Black girl future.

https://www.arevolutionarysummer.com/home

Mason Jar Press has been publishing handmade, limited-run chapbooks and full-length books since 2014. The Press is dedicated to finding new and exciting work by writers that push the bounds of literary norms. While the work Mason Jar seeks to publish is meant to challenge status quos, both literary and culturally, it must also have significant merit in both those realms.

masonjarpress.xyz

Screen Shot 2020-07-20 at 8.13.55 PM.png — Lines + Stars

Lines + Stars is a Baltimore-based literary journal and small press. We publish seasonal online issues, annual poetry chapbooks, broadsides, and other projects.

www.linesandstars.com

Ligeia is a literary magazine based out of Baltimore. Ligeia publishes poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and interviews in quarterly issues. We support and contribute to a global writing community—but we also plan to build a local network of lit lovers.

https://www.ligeiamagazine.com/

The Inner Loop

The Inner Loop is a literary reading series and network for writers in Washington, D.C. that aims to create a space for both emerging and established writers to connect with their community and to transform the written word into a shared experience through the act of reading aloud.

www.theinnerlooplit.org

Screen Shot 2020-07-19 at 3.38.55 PM.png — Enoch Pratt

Public Library

prattlibrary.org

Dew More seeks to foster civic engagement with historically marginalized peoples through innovative art-focused programming and community organizing via purposeful partnerships with community organizations, schools, and governmental agencies that foster empowerment, capacity for change, and community development.

Our Vision: Dew More aims to leave individuals and communities in a more actualized, engaged, and connected condition.

Dewmorebaltimore.org

Baltimore Stories

Baltimore Stories is the creative collaboration of local literary and visual artists. Writer Kerry Graham will read vignettes about her experiences teaching high school English. Each short but impactful story is accompanied by either the artwork of painter Joann Dewwealth-O'Brien or photographer Rachel Shifreen. The visual art, inspired by the vignettes, reveals glimpses of each artist's individual impression of Baltimore. Follow them at: www.facebook.com/artistswithadayjob/

An Evening of Vintage Smut.jpg — An Evening of
Vintage Smut

Baltimore's Randiest Reading Series

www.facebook.com/EveningofVintageSmut

Authors

Linda Gail Francis is a Baltimore-based poet who has always enjoyed words, whether they are flying through the air or sitting still on the page. Following earlier experiences as a waitress, teacher, and radio host, she has worked for many years as an editor. Her poems illuminate the startling richness to be found in ordinary experience and imagination. Linda is the author of the chapbook Coming Across: Poems and Lunch, available on Amazon.

Edward Swing is a writer of stories, software developer, avid gamer, and otaku. He has been a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, learned taekwondo, traveled both within the United States and internationally, and studied diverse topics including astronomy, mythology, and mathematics. He lives with his wife, three children, and several pampered cats.

wordsbyedward.com

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press). She has her MBA from University of Baltimore and her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her publications on her blog: www.wordperv.com. Follow her on twitter: @wordperv, and IG: @wordperv79.

www.courtneyleblanc.com

Cheryl Woodruff-Brooks, MBA/MA is an author who completed her first book, Chicken Bone Beach: A Pictorial History of Atlantic City’s Missouri Avenue Beach (Sunbury Press) in 2017, which was nominated for a 2017 Literary Award with the Schomburg Center in New York City, used in classrooms at Purdue University and referenced in The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies. Cheryl’s second book, Golden Beauty Boss is a biography about an African-American entrepreneur who became a self-made millionaire in the 1940s.

cherylwb.com

Amanda McCormick is an experiential performer & writer whose work has appeared in a variety of forms & mediums over the past two decades. She is the founder of Ink Press Productions in Baltimore where she explores publishing as its own artistic medium and means to connect. She received her MFA from University of Baltimore where she now teaches. Amanda is the author of several books including & THE GREEN, a feminist retelling of growth and loss, taken from the source text Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, and AMANDA, a project of poetry that deals with the physical, experienced, and internalized selfhood of the artist-human who navigates society and the natural world in a slant framework of love and existence.

inkpressproductions.com

Kapua Iao 7/17/20 Kapua Iao 7/17/20

Transformation Through Poetry: A Conversation with Roz Weaver

Roz Weaver is a poet and spoken-word artist who grew up by the beach in Fornby, near Liverpool, England. She now resides in Leeds where in addition to writing poetry she works as a social worker and is a licensed therapist. Weaver’s upcoming Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook on trauma and transformation, Smoke the Peace Pipe, is now available for presale and will be released August 2020. Beginning Tuesday, July 21, Weaver will host a six-week “Poetry as Therapy” online workshop with Yellow Arrow.

Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Siobhan McKenna, spoke with Weaver about her new chapbook, spoken word, and her thoughts on using poetry as a therapy tool at a time when our world is in need of great healing.

YAP: How did you begin writing poetry?

I enjoyed drama as I was growing up and about three and a half years ago, I started writing and reading poetry. After I watched a TED Talk by Rupi Kaur, I read some of her poetry and started writing. I think some of the stuff that she talks about in her poetry is something that gave me the confidence to think about how I would word what I wanted to talk about. [My poetry] was all really terrible to start with, but then I went from there.

YAP: How did you start performing as a spoken-word artist?

Similar to how I started writing, I had in my head for about a year a piece that I thought would be really good as a spoken-word piece and there was a spoken-word night in Manchester and I put my name on the list, but I backed out a few days beforehand because I was terrified. It took about a year after that to try again, and I still have never performed that poem! But after that, I never started to specifically design my poems for spoken word, but I would go up on the stage more often. [Spoken word] still makes me feel anxious most of the time—I don’t really like it! But you have to keep putting yourself in that discomfort zone. I do get that buzz from performing, but all before it I’m a bunch of nerves!

YAP: What does spoken word bring to poetry?

I think it can bring something really different from page poetry. There are some great places around where I live that do spoken-word events and the poetry can blend to almost being like music or song—its lyrics, its rap, some of them have live bands that will improvise to the rhythm of how someone is speaking. And sometimes, there will be someone sitting in the audience who needs to hear what you’re talking about whether it’s a shared experience, a reframing of perspective, or they’re ignorant to the thing someone is talking about and they need to have that learning. There is also a community feel [during spoken-word performances] when everybody clicks their fingers when they agree with a bit in a poem—rather than clapping or whooping, which might interrupt the speaker—I find [the clicks] really cute and adds to the vibe.

YAP: How do you translate spoken to written?

When I am doing a spoken-word poem it takes me forever because I start it and then I try to find the next line and it will take me hours or days or weeks to put one together. And generally for spoken word, in order to speak long about a subject, I need to be pretty passionate about a subject that I can’t just summarize on a page.

YAP: Do you find different meanings coming through when performing spoken-word poetry that you didn’t realize when you originally wrote the piece?

[One poetry line] that I may think is a very significant line in a piece, someone else will jump to something completely different and say that was the bit that they really identified with, which is often similar to page poetry. Lines can be interpreted in really different ways and whether its spoken-word or page poetry, once [a poet has] written something we don’t have a say in what it means to other people. I really don’t like when someone introduces their piece and the introduction about their piece is as long as their piece. I think it prevents somebody in the audience from interpreting the piece in a different way and sometimes the way in which someone interprets your poem is better than what your original meaning was and you say [jokingly], “Oh, yeah, I totally meant that.”

YAP: How can poetry be used as a type of therapy?

Poetry is a form of expression, and I’ve found it’s easier to put things into words in a poem rather than speaking to somebody face-to-face. For example, sometimes in a conversation with someone they want to find a solution, and with a poem, you can leave it hanging with the raw emotion and you don’t have someone else giving you advice. Sometimes, you have the words for something, but you don’t know how to feel about it yet or you can be quite numb to something and it’s only after I wrote a poem that I’ve really connected what is going on for me.

YAP: What inspired you to create the “Poetry as Therapy” workshop [now sold out!] for YAP?

I’m in my final module of my creative writing masters and in my first year, we were asked to build a set of workshops. I have quite a lot of personal interest around therapy and poetry therapy because it is a bigger thing in America, but it doesn’t exist in the UK so I wanted to build on that idea. So I created the workshops for a university module and they were sitting there and I thought it would be nice at one point to do something with them. The original ones that I put together were for women who had experienced violence so for the Yellow Arrow sessions I adapted them.

YAP: Who should attend your workshops?

Anybody! I think if people are interested in poetry, creative writing in general, or if people are trying to work through things that are going on for them then it might be a good tool to start that journey. I am a qualified therapist but the workshops aren’t therapy. People don’t have to share anything that they don’t want to. A lot of [the workshop] will be [completing] different exercises and prior readings and going away and trying some of the [activities] out by yourself. I’m sure I’ll do all the exercises along with people—I probably need it right now as well!

YAP: Why were you drawn to publish with Yellow Arrow Publishing?

I love Yellow Arrow. It’s been two years since I was first published by [Yellow Arrow Publishing] in one of their journals. I’ve been published two or three times, and I’ve always found the process lovely. Gwen [the YAP founder] would handwrite thank-you notes and post me this hand-bound journal from America and it’s just lovely. I find it to be a very supportive environment, warm, welcoming, and I love that it promotes writers who identify as women. It feels like so much care is taken with people’s work. They care about you, and I really love the ethos of the organization.

YAP: The title of your chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe, sounds like a direct call to action and almost invites the reader to join with you as well, was this intentional and how did you settle on the title of the chapbook?

I wish that is why I chose that! I settled on it after I had already ordered the [poems in the] chapbook to flow from a place of challenge and dark to moving into the light and [“Smoke the Peace Pipe”] worked perfectly as the final poem. I was trying to think of titles, and I liked it as the overall theme of the book—finding peace with yourself. [Smoke the Peace Pipe] has that meaning with me.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemies, and we have all these different parts of ourselves, which we don’t let exist at the same time. We lock-off bits, we avoid things, and we don’t see how we can feel different feelings at once; we feel like we need to be on this linear trajectory. There’s a poet named, Ijeoma Umebinyuo and she has a poem that says sometimes, “Healing comes in waves / and maybe today / the wave hits the rocks / and that’s ok” and I wanted to get that across.

I suppose the peace pipe, in terms of symbolism as well, is a link to something spiritual, nature, mother earth, and to the things that can help heal us. The peace pipe as a symbol is something really sacred, and I wanted to honor where that comes from and not use the phrase lightly. I’m really aware that the meaning and the history are not mine. And I wanted to pay tribute to [the fact] that we learn from other communities and other ways of being, other ways of knowing.

YAP: How did you choose the cover art for the chapbook?

The cover [was] designed by a tattoo artist in Scotland, Joanne Baker. She was a fine arts grad before she got into tattooing. She did one of my tattoos that was in part inspired by Rupi Kaur. I love [Joanne’s] artwork and I wanted to do it with someone British and after thinking about how we could make it work, Joanne was up for it. I sent Joanne a few poems and she came back with a few different ideas and it worked like that. She’s just an amazing artist and she had never done a book cover before so for her it was something to add to the portfolio. It felt really good to collaborate with her rather than pick an image that didn’t have any meaning for me.

YAP: 2020 has been a turbulent year in many ways. What role does poetry play in the face of an ongoing pandemic and fervent call for action against racial injustice?

I think people have had a lot of alone time whether to read or write. And linking back to poetry as therapy, poetry is definitely a way to express frustrations, fears, or keep a record of the small daily things to be grateful for. I think for me I’ve seen more impactful poetry, not around coronavirus, but more around Black Lives Matter. I’ve seen a lot of spoken word that has shown up, and I hope that stays. There are a couple poets on Instagram who I follow with minority backgrounds and some of the work they share is so inspiring it just leaves me at a loss for words. I think poetry sparks debate and conversations. And I think that’s needed whether it is because people are feeling lonely or as a way to continue to inspire us and to think about and change how we do things and move to a new normal in terms of coronavirus or a new normal around Black Lives Matter or trans rights. And none of this is new; it was just buried. The other day I was listening to a poet in the UK, Benjamin Zephaniah. He is a spoken-word/music/performance poet and he wrote a song called, “Dis Policeman Keeps On Kicking Me to Death.” And he wrote that almost 10 years ago in relation to one of his family members who had a similar death to George Floyd, but in the UK. So one story just hits the news, but it’s been happening everywhere all the time, which is really scary.

YAP: Is there a limit to how poetry gives us access to someone else’s lived experiences?

I think someone has to be in a place to hear it, especially if it’s something that challenges their world views or something that could be triggering. At spoken-word events, some people will have trigger warnings before a piece. And it’s ok that we don’t get something that someone is talking about because it is beautiful that there are so many different perspectives—as long as it’s not harmful to somebody else.

YAP: What knowledge or feelings do you hope readers gain from reading your chapbook?

To put some context to it, the trauma I refer to is related to my experience with sexual violence. I didn’t want to expand loads because trauma can come in so many different ways for people, and I wanted it to be relatable to people who have been through anything. I hope that people can know that things get better. In terms of my healing, [it has been helpful] knowing that there are other people out there who get it and that you are not alone. If it reaches one other person and that makes them realize that someone has gone through something similar, survived, and is all right, then that is really important.

There is an article in The Independent that in the UK only 1.5% of rapists that are charged by police are prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service. I don’t know what world we are living in, but it’s not one that feels like it takes this stuff seriously. I think systems are failing so many people. And sometimes I read stuff like that and I think about all of the people who don’t report things to the police and why would they when that’s the statistic. And why would they when a lot of the police in the system treat women like they do—because it is majority women who experience [sexual violence]. For me, it is finding alternative ways for healing when you don’t always get the response that you want from the systems around you, from the people who you would want to get criminal justice from, and from people who are close to you who don’t know how to respond. [My chapbook] is something that can say that you are not alone and there are ways you can explore this and things that you can do to start to feel better.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Roz and Siobhan for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Guest User 6/18/20 Guest User 6/18/20

We are seeking collective wisdom

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Maya Angelou

Earlier this month, we canceled our Home Sweet Home reading out of respect for the grief and suffering in our midst and in recognition of protests and community activities planned for that night. As part of the Highlandtown Art Walk and launch of our latest literary journal, our reading was meant to be built around the theme of HOME. Sadly, our shared home, our country, is torn apart by racism, violence, and injustice. The Yellow Arrow Publishing family wants to express our outrage at the killing of George Floyd by the police and our solidarity with the racial justice protest movement sweeping the country. We know that for some, America can be a hostile, dangerous place rather than the peaceful home we desire, based on ideals of liberty and justice. We are committed to continuing our mission to provide a safe and welcoming place for all self-identifying women and promoting opportunities for their voices to be heard.

The Yellow Arrow family welcomes women of all colors and backgrounds to be part of our community of volunteers, writers and readers, instructors and students. Our intent is to foster diversity in all of our work in order to create richer experiences and space to learn and grow from each other. Women writers have many obstacles to overcome to get their work published and all deserve to have their voices heard.

We’ve been working since 2016 to lift up women’s voices. While we made it a priority to reach out to writers of all backgrounds, we must admit we haven’t been systematically intentional about this. For example, we don’t have a way of collecting data on the racial or ethnic background of our writers or staff. We assumed that diversity would naturally work itself out. We were wrong. We do know that our organization is majority white. We realize that Yellow Arrow House, while intended to be a place of refuge, has largely become a white space. And we know that most people who submit their work to us for consideration are majority white.

We are actively working on ways to challenge ourselves to change, both in the short and long term. The Yellow Arrow Publishing family would love your feedback and input on how we, as a publishing company, can better involve and support all women. If you would like to add your collective wisdom, please send us an email at info@yellowarrowpublishing.com with your thoughts on how we can ensure Yellow Arrow House becomes the home we hoped for.

Thank you for your support of our mission.

The team at Yellow Arrow Publishing

Linda M. Crate

“i will never give this up,” the samurai

~when i first recalled her, i remembered who i truly was; a fierce, courageous fighter~

Courtney Essary Messenbaugh

“Our Hearth,” Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. V, No. 2 HOME

~Engorging itself to inspire / Howling monsters, thick with legend, while / Awaiting its next set of footprints.~

Deja Ryland

“Sand,” Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. V, No. 3 (Re)Formation

~The sand reminds me that there are compositions—imperishable histories—that will always align our stories together.~

Taína

“Killing Ty,” Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. V, No. 1 RESILIENCE

~I’m killing her. Right here. Right now. This string of words is her final dagger. The Smithsonian calls it Paper Genocide, the destruction of my name.~

Roz Weaver

“Smoke the Peace Pipe,” Smoke the Peace Pipe

~We, wild spirits, being all at once / in this one lifetime, / found here like some long lost siblings, / our everything alive.~

(Re)Formation

Smoke the Peace Pipe

Literary Organizations

Zora’s Den

Zora's Den Writers' Group is a sisterhood of Black women writers.

Roots & Raíces

Revolutionary Summer

Mason Jar Press

Lines + Stars

Lines + Stars is a Baltimore-based literary journal and small press. We publish seasonal online issues, annual poetry chapbooks, broadsides, and other projects.

Ligeia Magazine

Ligeia is a literary magazine based out of Baltimore. Ligeia publishes poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and interviews in quarterly issues. We support and contribute to a global writing community—but we also plan to build a local network of lit lovers.

The Inner Loop

The Inner Loop is a literary reading series and network for writers in Washington, D.C. that aims to create a space for both emerging and established writers to connect with their community and to transform the written word into a shared experience through the act of reading aloud.

Enoch Pratt

Public Library

Dewmore Baltimore

Our Vision: Dew More aims to leave individuals and communities in a more actualized, engaged, and connected condition.

Baltimore Stories

An Evening of

Vintage Smut

Baltimore's Randiest Reading Series

Authors

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