Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog

Kapua Iao 3/15/22 Kapua Iao 3/15/22

Believing in the Power of Love Too Much: A Conversation with Nikita Rimal Sharma

A mere matchstick

I thought myself to be,

feeble in structure.

Needing several strikes for a single second of flame.

(not) just a matchstick

“I believe in the power of love too much,” says Nikita Rimal Sharma, the author of Yellow Arrow Publishing’s next chapbook, The most beautiful garden. This stunning sentiment about the inspiration behind her latest work summarizes the message of her chapbook beautifully: the world is not perfect and yet, we must keep loving it. Nikita’s unconditional love for our world in spite of all the tragedy, frustration, and nonsense is the underlying thread that runs through her collection. Throughout The most beautiful garden, which we cannot wait for you to read, Nikita’s poems touch on the struggles of depression, immigration, and identity and yet are grounded in the understanding that even during bouts of despair there is still hope to be found. Nikita emphasizes that “believing in the power of love too much” allows us to be aware of the brutal realities of the world while still unearthing strength and beauty in ourselves, others, and nature.

And that beautiful sentiment is definitely something visible in the incredible cover of The most beautiful garden, drawn by Yellow Arrow Creative Director Alexa Laharty. After seeing the cover, Nikita exclaimed, “Alexa put my imagination into a lovely form of art for the cover page. It summarizes the title poem perfectly and also the way I would like to approach life: making the best out of what you have, noticing beauty and the vividness of colors in yourself and the things around you. Thank you so much, Alexa, for all that you and the Yellow Arrow team have done for me during this process.”

The most beautiful garden is now available for PRERELEASE (click here for wholesale prices) and will be released April 12, 2022. Follow Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram for Friday sneak peeks into The most beautiful garden, starting this Friday and continuing through April 8. Recently, Editorial Associate Siobhan McKenna took some time to get to know Nikita and the inspiration behind The most beautiful garden.

Kathmandu is the root to my being

[. . .]

Wichita was the blank canvas for the rest of my life

[. . .]

Baltimore is the city that helped me fly

The places that made me

Originally born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, Nikita moved with her husband to Wichita, Kansas at the age of 25. There, she completed her master’s degree and eventually moved to Baltimore, Maryland, her current home. In Baltimore, she stumbled upon Yellow Arrow House while walking through the Highlandtown neighborhood; she decided to go inside. “It was almost like serendipity. I got a business card and looked on the website and saw that there was an upcoming class.” The class was “A Year in Poetry” with Ann Quinn and many of the poems that she started in that class are part of her forthcoming collection.

Although “A Year in Poetry” class honed her poetry skills, Nikita has always loved writing as a method to process her emotions. Throughout her life, she has written journal entries, poems, and letters to herself as a way of honoring the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. In many ways, Nikita’s The most beautiful garden is a work of reflection and synthesis as she braids together her Nepali roots with the life and identity that she has established and continues to create in the United States.

Throughout The most beautiful garden, it sounds like not all Nepali culture resonated with you. How did you navigate this? Are there any Nepali customs that you hold onto?

I had a happy childhood. Here [in the U.S.], I am [a brown minority], but there [in Nepal] I had the privileges of a white person: so [many] good opportunities, but with that came a lot of pressure. But for me, [the pressure] didn’t really benefit me, because every action that I did was judged very badly. I was [in a generation with] access to technology and some things I did were modern, but some members of my extended family were really traditional. So, no matter what I did I was always judged and as a patriarchal society, it was all very toxic for me.

Here, I feel like I live for myself now, but when in Nepal, you live for others. “What are people gonna say?” is at the forefront of every decision-making, and I don’t do well with that. I also saw how my mom as a daughter-in-law or just as a woman was treated because she was from one generation above me and she had less opportunities than me. And all of that really bothered me and never fostered my growth and those are the pains that [I still hold in my heart]. But now that I’m here, I’m able to work through that and create a life that feels more like myself. And that does not mean I am going to give up everything. Obviously, there are cultural things, [family] and friends I will never be able to let go of.

Overall, being from a different culture lends me a different eye when solving problems or in viewing the world. Also, just the food that I eat. I’ve come to realize how the food that I grew up eating was actually a really healthy diet—and I hated that food as a child. It was lentils, rice— the daal bhaat is what we call it, and every meal was that. Now, I can’t wait to have it. So, any time I can have homemade food like that, I feel like I’m home again. And there are so many smaller and bigger things that I take [from my culture] and I treasure them.

You talk about how your culture growing up wasn’t as beneficial for who you are as a person. Can you talk more about the expectations of South Asian women?

[Those sentiments] are specific to my mom’s or mother-in-law’s generation. They have never been taught to know themselves or to explore themselves, and I feel very lucky to be able to do that. If you ask anyone from my mom’s generation: what do you like or what are things you enjoy doing? They don’t usually have an answer. Instead, they will say: “Oh, whatever you like” or “The happiness of others.” And of course, service and making others happy is very essential. But I feel that [they] have been taught to only find purpose in the well-being of others so that they forget to think about themselves and about what is good for them, and you just reach a point in your life where all of that keeps getting piled up and it was never sorted out or healed or worked through and I feel like that continues the vicious cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Obviously, the U.S. has its own problems in regard to the ways we treat women, but do you see similar parallels between your experience in Nepal and the United States?

Kind of, in different ways. I do think that with a lot of things [in the U.S.] we are way ahead although I don’t think [our journey for equality] will ever end. But in Nepal, there are some very basic constructs for women. [For example] when I was on my period, I wasn’t able to go in the kitchen. Of course, those things changed as I grew older and times changed, but those are things that you don’t have to think about in the United States.

In a later email, Nikita added, “There are communities in Nepal that still follow the practice of isolation during a woman’s period and some women have even lost their life due to negligence during the isolation.

Have you found yourself at peace in your merging of Nepalese and U.S. cultures?

Well, I have merged into a lot of things, but I think there are parts of me that will never fully merge no matter how much I try and that’s OK and that’s the beauty of it. Like I said, food is a big example or when talking about pop culture there are so many things! You can mention a song and I’ve never heard of it and that is a barrier. So, there are gentle reminders in my everyday life that make it harder for me to merge fully. At the same time, in recent years, I have been able to understand both cultures to be able to take some of my learnings from this culture and be able to communicate that with my mom and help her navigate her own life [in Nepal].

It is up to us,

to remain a sapling,

give ourselves the permission

to dig deeper

Growth

How has poetry helped your mental health?

A lot. I think writing this whole chapbook has helped with my mental health. I [wrote The most beautiful garden] during the pandemic and that’s when time was slower, and I was also going through a lot of emotional changes. There were things happening in my personal life, and I had a lot of very strong emotions, and I was trying to work on all of that. And writing [about my emotions] and sharing it was hard, but it also helped me sort through feelings. I also sought help from a psychiatrist and therapist, and that helped, but poetry was definitely one of the tools that I used for healing.

Why do we—mainly people who identify as women—still allow ourselves to be shamed by numbers and images even when understanding all the good our bodies do?

I wish I knew the answer because this is an ongoing struggle. In my 30s, I’ve been the strongest that I’ve ever been. I work out more consistently. I run. I eat better. I eat whatever I want. I’ve never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, but there was a point in my life when I was very restrictive with my diet. Now, I eat whatever I want, but that came from a reflection of how all the women I’ve talked to or anyone who identifies as a woman have at least one body part that they are insecure about. It does not matter how much you weigh or your body shape.

I think that . . . I don’t know the answer.

We have made progress as a society to accept our bodies as they are, but I still find it very hard to think of myself that way and I’m sure I’ll learn, and I’ll reframe. But even at this point no matter how much progress I make, I’ll always struggle with body image. If you find the answer, let me know.

Try to love people when it’s hard for you to love:

[ . . . ]

Let the wings of your heart fly to places it doesn’t want to go.

Maybe, this is how we can make the world a better place?

You write about loving people even when they are dissimilar to yourself. This sentiment seems especially relevant right now. How do you see that in action in our society today?

I think a lot about this. Right now, politically the world seems so polariz[ed]. No matter what: my opinion is right, no matter what side you’re on. And it does matter [to an extent] in politics and law and decision-making, but we make it matter more than it should sometimes. And our whole media and the entire world and social media are geared toward making us see all the differences, but then we don’t give enough time and attention to see the things that we have in common.

I believe in the power of love too much. Differences exist. And I don’t like certain opinions, I feel like they’re wrong, but they are opinions in the end. They are not your identity, and they are not the struggles that humans go through. So, it’s important to have opinions based on fact and science, but if we are not willing to find a common ground and to approach things with love and understanding—approach other humans who are different and try to think from their perspective—then I feel like no matter how much progress we make it still won’t be complete or whole for me.

Later, Nikita added, “Opinions do matter especially in a country like the United States where we have people from all over the world and varied cultures.”

You also mention using your voice to spread peace through nonviolence. How do you envision change being made through nonviolent communication?

I think nonviolent communication leads to more understanding. It helps us slow down and think and reflect a bit more. So that the change may be slower, but more sustainable. But I do hope with my language I want to get more involved with mental health advocacy and write more in those areas in a way that is more understanding and relatable.

I also want to use my writing as a way to find more things in common with people rather than attacking [them]. I don’t appreciate on social media when humans say, “Hey, what you’re doing is wrong.” And in coming from [a nonviolent] place, I think we’d bring about more change.

Finally, you mentioned that you’ve fallen in love with Baltimore. At Yellow Arrow, the city of Baltimore is very close to our hearts, but for most people outside of Baltimore, it’s a very underrated city. What has kept you in Baltimore?

I think people are very authentic here and that’s what has kept me in Baltimore. Everyone I have interacted with [seems to “keep it real”]. I have an example. I live in South Baltimore now, but I used to live downtown and the UPS guy in our apartment was the best human that I’ve ever met. Whenever he came in with a package, he always had the most genuine smile. It wasn’t just a customer service smile. It was a hey, I’m-here-I’m-happy smile. In December 2016, I was going through a pretty bad bout of depression, and I think seeing him would always make my day and he has no idea the difference that he made in my life. But just things like that when you’re walking around the city: people do greet you and not in an I-have-to-be-friendly kind of way. They really mean it. When people help here, it comes from the heart, and I think that’s what has me glued to the city—I really love that. For the size of the city, it really is community-oriented.

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Thank you, Nikita and Siobhan, for sharing your conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

You can support us as we AWAKEN in a variety of ways: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 102, Glen Arm, MD 21057). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.

Kapua Iao 3/8/22 Kapua Iao 3/8/22

An Interview with Sofía Aguilar

By Melissa Nunez, written January 2022

Sofía Aguilar is a Chicana writer and editor based in Los Angeles, California. She is an alum of WriteGirl, an LA-based creative writing and mentoring organization that empowers girls and nonbinary teens through mentoring and monthly creative writing workshops, and is still active within that collaborative community. She has published an impressive body of online work ranging from poetry and essays celebrating her heritage to commentary on female and Latin@ representation in pop culture and the media for publications like LatinaMediaCo and HipLatina. Her passion for uplifting the voices of marginalized writers and contributing to a conversation of positive change was evident from the start.

Sofía is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Mag 20/20. This past December, she self-published her first poetry chapbook titled STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv. I found Sofía’s work resonant and relatable, especially her thoughts and themes surrounding Latin@ culture. Her published essays like “Decolonizing My Latina Hair: How I Learned to Love the Locks White America Wanted Me to Tame” (Offcultured, 2021) and “motherland” (Jupiter Review, 2021) voice issues relevant to many descendants of the Latin@ diaspora. As a writer with a wide range of talents, I was very interested in hearing more about where she finds her motivation and inspiration.

I was able to chat with Sofía during her time in residency with the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship in Tepoztlán, Mexico—one of the many honors she has received in her writing career. The bright room and window mountain scene served as a backdrop to our conversation and were matched by her vibrant energy.

As an organization with a similar mission, Yellow Arrow Publishing was very excited to hear about the WriteGirl organization. Can you tell me about your experience with WriteGirl and what makes it so successful?

I was referred to WriteGirl by a high school guidance counselor because of my interest in writing. My peers were more STEM-oriented, and he saw the need for a creative community of writers I could relate to.

I met so many amazing people through WriteGirl. The mentees and staff, the women mentors, are so incredible. I cannot say enough good things about it. The workshops are designed to introduce you to all these different genres of writing, not just poetry, and [they] opened my whole world. From an early age, I was exposed to these things I wouldn’t have been otherwise. That’s why I write in so many genres. I write hybrid works and love pushing the boundaries of genre. Aside from writing, it also helped me with professional skills (public speaking and networking) that I still use to this day. And I’m still learning so much. I’m still involved with the program as a volunteer and staff member.

I think it is successful because it is led by so many incredible people. They are passionate about their work, and it shows in everything that they do. There is so much deliberate care taken in the building of relationships. I consider myself so lucky to work with them and help foster the next generation. Giving back to a community that gave me so much. They told me my words mattered and that my voice could resonate with people at a time when I most needed to hear it. The whole structure invites people to come back so the work continues.

What do you love most about writing?

I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I’ve always loved words and language. From an early age, I knew I loved creating new worlds and fantastical things. But when I was younger, I wasn’t exposed to people who resonated with me or reflected my own experience. Not until reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. She captures the Mexican American experience so beautifully. It was so impactful, and I wanted to do that. To give representation to someone else who needed it. I wanted to see a world where you shouldn’t have to wait to read a book that represents you. I love that I get to celebrate my heritage, my journey, and uplift women, shed light on social justice issues when I write.

You mentioned the amazing author, Sandra Cisneros. Who else has served as inspiration in your writing journey?

Everything Sandra Cisneros has ever written has become biblical to me. Her work is the kind that you can keep coming back to and learn new things, which is rare for me. I read her at a point where I needed her, and she has become such a relevant figure in my life. Other writers that have really inspired me are Jane Austen, who has impacted the way I look at character and dialogue. Maggie Nelson, in her telling of stories through vignettes. It can be really intimidating to see people writing these huge sagas, and I thought I couldn’t be a writer without writing this huge book. She showed me another way to do it. Salvadoran poet Yesika Salgado has greatly inspired my poetry. Janel Pineda (friend and WriteGirl alum) is another Salvadoran poet I admire. I enjoy reading writers across the Latin@ diaspora.

When you write about culture, how do you balance the honoring of family and people with the critical aspect that comes with acknowledging things (customs/values/mores) that need to change?

One example of this is the way I use the Spanish language in my writing. I don’t italicize Spanish words because it is a language equal to English. But I also talk about (in “motherland”) how Spanish is a colonizer language. Spanish is beautiful and romantic and the language of our people, but we have to acknowledge that it is so widespread across Latin America because of colonization. On the other hand, in the United States, Spanish is seen as an enemy language, not to be spoken in certain areas. It is such a complicated dichotomy. There are some contexts in which speaking Spanish feels like something that brings shame or needs to be hidden away, and in this aspect, we should empower it. But also, it is used to silence Indigenous languages. So, there is a need to both celebrate and question the history of the language.

What work in progress are you most excited about?

I have so many ideas for so many things. I have so much to say, and so many ways to say them. Right now, I’m most excited about the novel in verse I am writing. There are so many possibilities for the characters and story. It is challenging but rewarding.

What advice would you give other women writers?

Write the story you haven’t read yet but want to read. That’s what is motivating my novel in verse. Nobody has written this story and it made me ask, why? This is my biggest motivator for writing. When I haven’t seen something done or done well, I want to be the answer to that question. Write the stories you want other people to read. What the world is missing. That urgency is so helpful to the writing process. Write what we need.

And also, rest. This is something I have learned during this residency. I have come to see writing as a service. We are storytellers. Someone here said something like, “Writers think they are not serving if they are not writing. But part of the writing process is to rest. Sit in silence with yourself.” So, you don’t have to be productive all the time. You are allowed to rest.

You can follow Sofía on Twitter @sofiaxaguilar and find more information about her writing career on her website. I am looking forward to reading more of her words. To see her writing what the world needs.

Melissa Nunez is a homeschooling mother of three from the Rio Grande Valley. Her essays and poetry have appeared in Sledgehammer Lit, Yellow Arrow Journal, and others. She is also a staff writer for Alebrijes Review. Her writing is inspired by observation of the natural world, the dynamics of relationships, and the question of belonging. You can follow her on Twitter @MelissaKNunez.

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

Kapua Iao 3/1/22 Kapua Iao 3/1/22

Yellow Arrow Journal (VII/01) Submissions are Now Open!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to announce submissions for our next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VII, No. 1 (spring 2022), are open March 1–31 addressing the overarching idea of r[a]ise. At its heart, r[a]ise brings up the idea that one rises as an individual and/or one raises others up. Rising is awakening but raising is also about what we do next as part of us but also outside ourselves: we raise children, raise food, raise awareness, raise questions. How do the two words interact in fruitful ways?”

This issue’s theme is

UpSpring

: to spring up

: a leap forward or upward

: to come into being

akin to a creation story (whether personal, cultural, or communal), a narrative of how something (someone) comes into being

Have you been raised by a community/communities that led to your own upspring?

Can a group or community upspring together? What kind of awakening might be needed for this to happen?

What upspring(s) have you brought into being? For someone or something else? Tell us about something or someone you raised.

What upsprings (in nature, in society, in your communities) have inspired an awakening?

Yellow Arrow Journal is looking for creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art submissions by writers/artists that identify as women, on the theme of UpSpring. Submissions can be in any language as long as an English translation accompanies them. For more information regarding journal submission guidelines, please visit yellowarrowpublishing.com/submissions. Please read our guidelines carefully before submitting. To learn more about our editorial views and how important your voice is in your story, read About the Journal. This issue will be released in May 2022.

We would also like to welcome this issue’s guest editor: Rebecca Pelky. Rebecca was one of our ANFRACTUOUS poets with her incredible piece “Nuhpuhk’hqash Qushki Qipit (Braids).” She holds a PhD from the University of Missouri, an MFA from Northern Michigan University, and is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Clarkson University. She is a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin and a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Through a Red Place, her second poetry collection and winner of the 2021 Perugia Press Prize, was released in September 2021. Her first book, Horizon of the Dog Woman, was published by Saint Julian Press in 2020.

We are also excited to announce that Rebecca will be teaching the workshop “Writing the Archive” for Yellow Arrow in April. The goal of this workshop is to introduce participants to various methods of writing creatively using archival materials as inspiration. While we often think of archives as places where research—in that most academic sense—occurs, archival documents can also be source material for creative inspiration. Archival material is mostly how Rebecca wrote her Perugia Press collection Through a Red Place.

Find out more about Rebecca at rebeccapelky.com.

Check back frequently and sign up for our newsletter as we are excited to reopen journal subscriptions soon!

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 advocating for writers that identify as women. Yellow Arrow proudly represents the voices of women from around the globe. Creating diversity in the literary world and providing a safe space is deeply important. Every writer has a story to tell, every story is worth telling.

You can be a part of this mission and amazing experience by submitting to Yellow Arrow, taking a workshop, volunteering, and/or donating today.

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

Kapua Iao 2/25/22 Kapua Iao 2/25/22

Reality vs. Memory: A Book Review of How to Sit by Tyrese Coleman

By Rachel Vinyard

“Time doesn't heal all wounds. It may dull the pain of some of them; help make the stabbing, the healing process, more tolerable. It may make you forget that you were even injured, for a moment, but time doesn't heal everything. Time—waiting, anticipating, wondering, hoping—can make things worse, and when those unhealed wounds inevitably reopen, you feel all the pain again.”

Tyrese Coleman’s How to Sit is a collection of essays and stories that make up the memoir of a young black woman who aims to share her trauma. Coleman shares her experiences of sexual abuse and familial discourse, growing up poor, and sacrificing her own happiness for the sake of her mother and grandmother. Coleman’s writing is an exploration of self and an expression of trauma healing. A common idea throughout the collection is this line between fiction and reality. How much of our memories are actually accurate? And why does some of the trauma that we remember feel like a story rather than an event that actually happened? Coleman explores the idea that our memories are not factual. They are based largely on emotion and how past events affected us. There are always multiple sides to a story. Coleman writes in an author’s note that “this collection of nonfiction and not-quite-nonfiction is intended to make you wonder what is and what isn’t true, and whether or not that matters.”

Reading through the collection, I found myself wondering how I can relate to the text and what Coleman describes she went through. Coleman talks about growing up poor, her relationship with a careless mother and a judgmental grandmother. She explains her struggles with poverty, race, and sexual trauma. Her stories are personal but unfortunately not unique. Whether it's the point that women are seen as sexual objects to some men, that this patriarchal ideology is ingrained in the minds of mother figures, or that you are forced to make sacrifices when you are growing up as a poor young black woman, Coleman gets her point across. It’ll either open your eyes to very real and personal struggles some women go through or put your own life into a new perspective. At its core, the memoir relays the idea of looking into the past, whether it be the past of yourself or your family, and uncovers unresolved trauma. In the end, Coleman explains how she was able to move on and finally begin to heal from the trauma she endured.

This memoir aims to share the reality of how distressing events can affect you years in the future. Without explicitly saying it, Coleman talks about symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), explaining how looking back at traumatic events can be a blurry experience. A common symptom of PTSD is dissociation, a process in which the mind will distance itself from a traumatic situation. This sort of paralytic freeze response may also cause the person to form a wall of amnesia between them and the traumatic memory, as to better cope with the traumatic experience. This dissociative amnesia makes it difficult for a person to be able to distinguish fact from fiction within their own traumatic memories (see here). PTSD can blur the lines between what feels like a real memory and a dream. It’s impossible to remember details of everything that has ever happened to you, but when a person struggles with PTSD or has dealt with trauma, the realities of traumatic memories might be blurred with details the person implemented to fill in the blanks. The brain is attempting to salvage sanity in the moment of trauma, resulting in the later questioning of What is real and what is false.

As a collection of nonfiction, some passages written like fiction, How to Sit is very engaging and story-like. A lot of the memoir includes digging into memories and going along with Coleman on her timeline-bouncing journey, uncovering trauma and beginning to process it. Many parts of the collection read like an internal monologue. The idea of fact versus fiction in terms of memories connects readers to the writing, allowing the audience to question along with Coleman in her healing journey. She finds truth in her memories by writing, “If this were fiction, we would’ve gotten to this part by now.”.

Coleman’s writing in How to Sit is moving and relatable. Reading this memoir, I unearthed feelings within myself that I may not have realized were so strong. Some of Coleman’s descriptions of sexual assault and the shame she felt from the mother figures in her life regarding who she was pained me to read. I didn’t understand why I felt so personally affected. The things I read in this memoir surely didn’t happen to me. We came from two completely different backgrounds. But the more I read and the more I heard Tyrese’s voice echoing her broken past, I realized that even though I didn’t relate to the exact circumstances, I related to the feelings. Reading this memoir is revolutionary to those who feel as though there is a fog around their own childhood memories. It allows you to reach inward and discover your own fact versus fiction if you so choose.

After reading this collection, I felt more willing to dig into my own past and start on my own healing journey. Coleman bravely shares her truth and poses the idea that the past we remember is just as important as what really happened. She explores the idea of fiction versus nonfiction in her own life and memories and eloquently expresses how this blurred line has affected her healing process. She shares the reality of how she felt, the validity she has over her emotions despite some of her memories feeling false or story-like. Traumatic experiences don’t have to look a certain way. What matters is that it affected you. What matters is how you go forward into healing.

Coleman, Tyrese L. How to Sit. Mason Jar Press, 2018.

Rachel Vinyard is an emerging author from Maryland and the fall 2021 publications intern at Yellow Arrow Publishing. She is working toward a BA in English at Towson University and has been published in its literary magazine Grub Street. She was previously the fiction editor of Grub Street and hopes to continue editing in the future. Rachel is also a mental health advocate and aims to spread awareness of mental health issues through literature. You can find her on Twitter @RikkiTikkiSavvi and on Instagram @merridian.official.

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

Kapua Iao 2/22/22 Kapua Iao 2/22/22

Meet a Board Member: LaWanda Stone

Yellow Arrow Publishing would like to introduce LaWanda Stone, Director of Diversity & Inclusion. Welcome to the Yellow Arrow family! LaWanda leads executive communications at Stanley Black & Decker and inner communications as a certified yoga instructor at Life Time Fitness. She also teaches through the company she founded, Namastone Yoga. Her passion is to help individuals show up as their authentic selves and be seen through storytelling. Her worldview has been shaped traveling North America, South America, the United Kingdom, Africa, and Australia. She has degrees in journalism from Howard University, organizational leadership from American Public University, and an RYT-200 yoga teaching certification from Life Time Fitness. You can find her on Instagram @Namastone_Yoga.

She will be co-leading the workshop “Poetry of the Body: Writing from an Embodied Perspective” with Nichola Ruddell on March 3. Make sure to sign up for the class today! According to LaWanda, “I’m excited to help underrepresented women find their voices and share their tapestry of perspectives as we all move through this world, one word at a time.”

LaWanda recently took some time to answer some questions for us. Show her some love in the comments or on Facebook/Instagram!

Tell us a little something about yourself:

After earning my journalism degree, I held reporting and writing jobs at Fortune magazine, washingtonpost.com, Chicago Tribune, and Dow Jones Newswires. I was eventually recruited into corporate communications and haven’t looked back. As long as I’m storytelling, I’m happy.

What do you love most about the Baltimore/DC area?

My windows overlook the Patapsco River and I absolutely love living, doing yoga, reading, and making meaningful connections near water. It’s a visual and audible gift.

How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow and what do you do?

Former colleagues steered me to Yellow Arrow. Notably, our Executive Director Annie Marhefka inspired me to explore getting involved. Between my family, career, and yoga teaching, there is no shortage of responsibilities, but Yellow Arrow just fit. The mission and purpose align with who I am and the energy I want to help put out into the world.

What are you working on currently?

My ice-skating game. I’m repeating level 3 adult ice-skating lessons to build upon my crossovers, turns, and a previous instructor’s description of me: “You’re like a low range freestyle skater.” I’ll take it!

What genre do you write and why?

Profile pieces are my sweet spot. I received a writing award in undergrad for a profile piece on my Aunt Jackie who owned a bookstore, Cultural Visions, and inspired students like me who came behind her at our alma mater. Profiling personal stories and experiences to help other people is one of the best ways to learn in my book.

Who is your favorite writer and why?

I’m inspired by the iconic Zora Neale Hurston who attended Howard University, like me, as well as Barnard College at Columbia University, like my daughter. And I’m enthralled by J. California Cooper whose words make me feel like I’m not reading but being taken for a ride.

Who has inspired and/or supported you most in your writing journey?

When I was a shy, soft-spoken girl who felt unheard, writing helped me find my voice. Honestly, God’s voice has encouraged me to write the most—with subtle nudges from people who’ve been placed along my path.

What do you love most about writing?

The release that it brings. I also take pride in helping other people communicate. As a ghostwriter for executives, I help convey business priorities to the people they need to make the products and shape the culture that will make the enterprise thrive.

What advice do you have for new writers?

Get a taste of each facet of journalism so that you can discover which genre suits you best.

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

Kapua Iao 2/15/22 Kapua Iao 2/15/22

Tôn Kutômkimun (How We Rise)

Yellow Arrow Publishing would like to announce the next guest editor for Yellow Arrow Journal, Rebecca Pelky. Rebecca will oversee the creation of our Vol. VII, No. 1 issue. Mark your calendars! Submissions open March 1 and the issue will be released in May.

This next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal will be on the overarching idea of r[a]ise. Rebecca states,

“I think that r[a]ise has the potential for myriad interpretations, but at its heart for me is the idea that one rises as an individual and/or one raises others up. Rising is awakening but raising is also about what we do next as part of us but also outside ourselves: we raise children, raise food, raise awareness, raise questions. How do the two words interact in fruitful ways?”

We are excited to announce the theme of Vol. VII, No. 1 next week.

Rebecca was one of our ANFRACTUOUS poets with her incredible piece “Nuhpuhk’hqash Qushki Qipit (Braids).” She holds a PhD from the University of Missouri, an MFA from Northern Michigan University, and is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Clarkson University. She is a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin and a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Through a Red Place, her second poetry collection and winner of the 2021 Perugia Press Prize, was released in September 2021. Her first book, Horizon of the Dog Woman, was published by Saint Julian Press in 2020.

Find out more about Rebecca at http://rebeccapelky.com/.

Please follow Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram for the theme announcement. Below, you can read more about Rebecca’s perspectives on r[a]ise. We look forward to working with Rebecca over the next few months.

By Rebecca Pelky

Ihtôqat nutôcimohkawô. Let me tell you a story. It’s the story of The Three Sisters, Shwi Mitukushq. This story has many different versions among Indigenous peoples, and this is one of them. Once, there were three sisters living together. Each of these sisters was very different from the others, but they all enjoyed spending time in the field next to their house. The youngest, who was not yet grown, crawled along the ground. The middle sister liked to lounge against the eldest, enjoying the wind and sun on her face. The eldest, feeling responsible for the younger sisters, always stood straight and tall, keeping an eye on things—especially the wanderings of the youngest. One day, the eldest sister noticed a boy visiting the field. They were all curious about him because he was talking to the animals. The boy began to visit often, and always showed them interesting things. Then one night in late summer, the youngest sister disappeared. The two elder sisters mourned her loss, and though they searched, they couldn’t find her. Not long after, the middle sister also disappeared, and the eldest was left alone. She blamed herself for not watching over them carefully enough. In her loneliness over the winter, she began to age and wither away. Thankfully, in spring, her sisters returned. They had been so curious about the boy that they had followed him and then were unable to return because of winter’s arrival. Seeing how much distress they’d caused the sister who always looked after them, they vowed to never leave again. That’s why the three sisters—corn, beans, and squash—are always planted together. Each plant helps the others thrive: beans climb the sturdy corn stalks, which allow them to bask in the sun above the squash plants’ vines and broad leaves. In turn, beans provide nitrogen to the soil and also stabilize the corn during high winds. Meanwhile, the large squash leaves help the soil retain moisture by shading it. The three sisters grow best when they rise together.

As I write this blog post to introduce myself, I’m sitting at my desk in a house on land that once belonged to the Mohawk people, whose name for themselves is Kanien’kehá:ka (“People of the Flint”). The Kanien’kehá:ka are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which many know as the Iroquois Confederacy. I’m not Mohawk nor do I belong to another tribe in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Yet I share this to express my gratitude. For the Haudenosaunee and many other Indigenous Nations, including my own, gratitude is central to our worldview, and what is gratitude but the recognition that we don’t rise alone. In recognizing my privilege of existing and writing to you in this space, I hope to raise others up with me—raise awareness, knowledge, perceptions.

As I’ve learned more about the history of my Mohegan ancestors, I’ve also learned that I have many reasons to be grateful to the Haudenosaunee. Like the sisters, my people would have had a difficult time thriving without them. In the 18th century, around the time of the Revolutionary War, my Indigenous ancestors were trying to move west, out from under the influence of colonial alcohol and land grabs. They, along with people from several other tribes, established a town in what would become Upstate New York. They built a church and called their town Brothertown, or, in Mohegan, Eeyamquittoowauconnuck. This was only possible because the Oneida Nation welcomed them into their territory, vowing that, “. . . and now brethren we receive you into our body as it were, now we may say we have one head, one heart, and one blood. . . . And if the evil spirit stirs up any nation whatsoever or person against you and causes your blood to be spilt we shall take it as if it was done unto us; or as if they spilt the blood from our own bodies. And we shall be ever ready to defend you and help you or even be ready to protect you according to our abilities. Brethren, we look upon you as a sixth brother. . . . The Oneidas, Kiyougas, Manticucks, Tuscaroras, and Tdelenhanas, they are your elder brothers. But as for the Mohawks, Onandagas, and Senecas, they are your fathers . . .” At the heart of this welcome, and indeed at the heart of the many Indigenous worldviews is that the success of a community outweighs the success of the individual—we should raise each other up as we rise ourselves. Even as my ancestors migrated again to Michigan territory (which would become Wisconsin), the Oneida, some of whom also moved to Wisconsin, continued to be close friends to the Brothertown Nation. That relationship remains to this day.

It’s all been a kind of awakening, as I learn more about what it means to be a Mohegan of Brothertown (and Mohican and Eastern Cherokee and African and German and British and French). Which parts of myself do I need to raise up? Which parts of myself need me as an ally? It’s a strange paradox to contain so many people—the colonizer and the colonized. But those parts also have to coexist in order for me to thrive. That’s not always easy, but I remember the lessons of the three sisters. I remember the lessons from my Brothertown ancestors—how Mohegan, Narragansett, Tunxis, Pequot, Niantic, and Montaukett peoples built a town and a church together, and together, have raised each other up for over 240 years.

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

Kapua Iao 2/8/22 Kapua Iao 2/8/22

Poetry is Life: How it Happened

So far, 2022 has been a jam-packed year for Yellow Arrow Publishing. We have chosen to AWAKEN in 2022, to reopen, reintroduce, reactivate, and restructure many of our core programs, including our Writers-in-Residence program (application open February 7–25), workshops (first class at the end of February!), and publications. Ann Quinn, Yellow Arrow Journal’s poetry editor and our only workshop instructor in 2020, has played a major role throughout the first month of 2022.

Her workshop “Poetry is Life” will begin again in March and as you all know, we just released the fantastic Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow, a guidebook for both readers and writers of poetry, alike.

Find your copy of Poetry is Life in the Yellow Arrow bookstore and reserve your spot in her class today. The live reading of Poetry is Life was on February 6 and is now available on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel: youtu.be/cg7x3c_uVwo.

So, how did it all happen?

By Ann Quinn

Our first meeting was in person. March 7, 2020, was to be the first of 12-monthly sessions—a year of poetry—in Yellow Arrow’s new house, decorated by volunteers with donated furniture and fixtures and lots of yellow paint. It still smelled a bit mildewy, but it was ours. Eight strangers gathered, with that slight prickle of mistrust—what will she ask of me, what will they think of me—but before long we were reading a poem together and parsing it and starting to break down the walls, just a little bit. Two hours later, we had shared, we had seen one another in our writing, we had eaten donuts from Hoehn’s Bakery, and we promised to come back in April.

And you know what happened next. But this class had been a dream of mine, and I was not about to let it go because of a pandemic. I called Gwen Van Velsor, Yellow Arrow’s founder, and said that I wanted to continue on Zoom. She agreed, somewhat doubtfully, I think, as long as I provided the account.

This was the class I had wanted to take, for decades. When I was 26, my mom gifted me a poetry weekend with Sandy Lyon, a poet who hosted weekend workshops in his home in Bethesda, Maryland. At that point, I had done some journaling, and I had written the occasional sonnet, but I was not alert to the magic latent in words arranged carefully and sparely on the page. And then the weekend was over, and I didn’t know how to carry this coolness on all by myself. So I returned to the rest of my messy life and was just a bit more inclined to read poems when they showed up and to wonder how the writer did that. And to take every opportunity, rare as it was, to write with others. And to return over and over to the question that Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Twenty years later—after graduate school in music, a year in an ashram, a brief stint in acupuncture school, lots of freelance work, marriage, and two kids—I interviewed a neighbor, Michael Collier, former Poet Laureate of Maryland, in order to write an article about him. In preparation for our meeting, I read one of his books. I read the poems one at a time, in waiting rooms, at the playground, in the minutes between my kids’ bedtime and mine. And the poems circled in my head and made me think and wonder and see things in new ways. And after the interview, Michael gave me a book that included an essay on how he decided to become a poet. You could decide to become a poet? Your poems could be bad at first, and then gradually improve? It seems so obvious now, but at the time it felt revelatory. I began reading voraciously and getting up early to try to write. I longed to take a class, but the nearest class was an hour’s drive, if I was lucky, down 95, 495, and Connecticut Avenue, and I couldn’t count on getting back by the end of my kids’ school day. My passion slowed to a simmer. My family came first.

Then my mom died. If you’ve experienced grief, you know how life-changing it can be. And if you’re reading this, you probably know how healing poetry can be as an outlet. Now poetry felt crucial. And my kids were older. I found a way to get to Bethesda one day a week for a Poetry 101 class with Nan Fry. I got into an advanced poetry class at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, with the marvelous Lia Purpura. I’ll never forget the feeling of walking into the undergraduate classroom at 50. How keenly I felt my age, and yet at the same time I felt 12. But how my heart sang. That semester, and the following (in which I took Intermediate Poetry with Lia—and I would happily take Beginning Poetry with her, too), were days in which I carried a light in my chest—it was like a low-grade, long-lasting feeling of being in love. And still, I would cry at the slightest remembering that my mother was gone. Meanwhile, the poetry poured forth.

Lia told me about a low-residency MFA program in Tacoma, Washington. I got in. Three years later, I graduated. I had some publishing success, including a book, Final Deployment (2018) from Finishing Line Press. But I was keenly interested in teaching, and I was looking for opportunities. I volunteered to lead a writing group at my church; before long, the free class had sorted itself into a small but dedicated group of writers who were willing to be vulnerable and real, confirming that yes, this was what I wanted to do.

Doors don’t always open at first. Poetry, like any of the arts, has a certain self-imposed hierarchy, where sometimes it feels as if obscurity wins the prizes. This is a shame because poetry has so much to offer everyone. And coming out of an MFA program, many people wonder which path to take. I think everyone has an important story, and what my study has given me is a way to gently lead those who would write poetry down the path of craft, for that is where delight lies.

Gwen created Yellow Arrow to open more doors to writers who might not otherwise be heard. Teaching here, and helping edit the journal, I feel like I’m helping these voices find their way. This class has been a gift. From the very first session on Zoom, we’ve had students from the West Coast, the Midwest, the South, and even Canada. A cohesive group has formed, and while we welcome others into the class, there are eight regulars who have attended almost since the beginning (three of whom were there on the donut day). We felt it was time to show you what we’ve done so far, which is how Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow happened. “Poetry is Life” is the class I wanted to take, all those years ago. And Poetry is Life is a way to share it with you.

You can find a copy of Poetry is Life in the Yellow Arrow bookstore and through most online distributors. Poetry is Life was compiled by Ann and includes contributions by Linda Gail Francis, Patrick W. Gibson, Jessica Gregg, Sara Palmer, Julia W. Prentice, Patti Ross, Nikita Rimal Sharma, and Jobie Townshend-Zellner. Cover art, “Coastal Vibrancy,” is by Claudia Cameron and the cover design is by Alexa Laharty.

Ann Quinn is a poet, editor, teacher, mentor, mother, and classical clarinetist. Her award-winning work has been published in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Broadkill Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda and for Yellow Arrow Publishing and is the poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Journal. Ann holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family. Visit her at annquinn.net.

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

Kapua Iao 2/4/22 Kapua Iao 2/4/22

How Our Roots Define Us: A Review of Dannie Ruth’s Inside the Orb of an Oracle

By Darah Schillinger

In her book, Inside the Orb of an Oracle (2020), Dannie Ruth transforms everyday images into art, bringing to life both grief and joy in the moments we may overlook. This collection of poetry illustrates how death and destruction belong alongside love and intimacy, combating the heavy reality of grief with the small, beautiful parts of life that may seem insignificant, like the grass on your toes drifting to the bottom of a pool. The poems manage to critique American values while also praising the cultures that have formed in spite of those values, recognizing that despite America’s deep systematic failures, it is the resilience of its people that we must celebrate.

The chapbook begins and ends with family, first describing the “equilibrium” of her own birth between her parents and sibling and seeing herself as “the end and the beginning of the whole.” The chapbook then ends with short, poetic descriptions of everyone significant in the poet’s own life, bookending the poems themselves with the immortalization of family. Ancestral ties and family are the dominating themes throughout the collection, as Ruth consistently refers back to her own roots and identity as a black woman in America.

We continue to discover more of our story, but most impeccable is this untethered bond that has bred four generations of black.

-I am a descendant of my great great grandfather’s third wife.

There is importance impressed upon her roots that cannot be ignored, revitalizing the idea of ancestry in a time when we’d rather forget the past than learn from it. Ruth’s emphasis on family and her roots seems to give meaning to the present, finding self within the stories and experiences passed down through generations. In “car ride lullaby,” the speaker describes a family reunion and the sights, sounds, and smells that defined her childhood:

The smell of grass charcoal, and old bay outback,

out front a street race

sunlight bouncing off dark backs

stretched arms and legs at the finish line

The smell of black and mild’s, beer, weed and wine, cigarettes and raspy conversations

These images are so routine yet illustrated so beautifully it’s as if we have transported there ourselves, watching everything happen in vibrant flashes of color and sound. The moments of joy and daydreams we are given perfectly contrast the grief and violence we see on other pages, giving a well-rounded, complex look into the speaker’s personal experiences.

The theme of ‘the linear’ defines Ruth’s poetry, imagining the white narrative as the default line of truth that excludes every other narrative it has erased. The linear is used to criticize America’s treatment of black voices and engage her readers in a conversation of colonialism, advertising the linear as a polished version of America's truth in need of critique. In “line leader,” the poem begins with:

His story is linear like the schools teach

And ends with:

He soothes:

No one else will breathe

our air. Fight against us

if you dare, you of darker

skin & coarser hair.

We are not told explicitly who the dominating “He” is but given the language of othering provided by the ending stanza it seems the “He” is actually a personified image of the white, male narrative of American colonialism. The “He” is a symbol of the oppressor, real but elusive, because of the sheer pervasion of whiteness within our society. As we know, there cannot be one dominating social group without the oppression of another, and with her poetry, Ruth puts into words the frustration, anger, and helplessness one feels when fighting a system that oppresses them.

Like the linear, death is central to Ruth’s storytelling, acting as a grounding force that sobers us and reminds us to savor the moments we may take for granted. In “only time we heard dad curse,” the speaker begins the poem with:

someone from the neighborhood shot a dog

& tossed this death over our fence

Here we are given a glimpse into the speaker’s own relationship with death, turning it into a tangible force that can be thrown away and thrust upon us. If we view death as someone forced, it revisits the old conversation about the unfortunate reality of unpredictable death, which Ruth also touches upon in her poems about gun violence and disease. From “guns”:

They reside at your local McDonald’s, Wal-Mart,

maybe even your grandmother’s purse.

dependable, destructive, damned,

damn near patriotic.

And from “my world”:

I had seen so many die

suddenly, slowly, miraculously

I began to understand the value

of a life and a life unfulfilled.

Death becomes visible in these poems, reminding us of our own mortality without instilling the same fear we’re accustomed to. Death becomes a handgun, the sterile white inside a hospital, the corpse of an animal. To Ruth, death is no longer something abstract and looming, but rather something sad and very real—something that can be tossed from one yard to another.

Not only is Dannie Ruth’s Inside the Orb of an Oracle a beautiful, free-verse glimpse into what makes a black, female poet in America but it is also a symphony of joy and color, death, and the whispers of slavery still manifesting around us, all compiled into one gorgeous chapbook. After experiencing it for myself, it is clear we must all read and reread until every smell is experienced, every image seen, and every poem is absorbed into the warmth of our chests.

Ruth, Dannie. Inside the Orb of an Oracle. C&R Press, 2020. https://crpress.org/shop/insidetheorbofanoracle

Darah Schillinger is a rising senior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland studying English Literature with a double minor in Creative Writing and Philosophy. She previously interned for the literary magazine EcoTheo Review in summer 2020 and has had poetry published in both her school literary journal, AVATAR, and in the Spillwords Press Haunted Holidays series for 2020. Darah currently lives in Perry Hall, Maryland with her parents, and in her free time she likes to write poetry and paint.

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

Kapua Iao 2/1/22 Kapua Iao 2/1/22

Poetry is Life: A Workshop Becomes a Book

Yellow Arrow announces the release of an unexpected but delightful poetry guide, Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow. The book, which grew from a monthly writing workshop launched in early 2020, is both a celebration of poetry created during the pandemic and a step-by-step practicum for those who wish to create their own verse.

In 12 chapters corresponding to 12 workshop sessions, readers will experience the class themselves through poems that participants created in response to work by beloved poets from William Blake to Terrence Hayes, from Elizabeth Bishop to Tracy K. Smith. Readers then can use the provided prompts to create their own poems. The book’s intent is to reacquaint readers with contemporary masters, introduce up-and-coming poets, and provide an interactive and structured approach that can be applied to their own practice.

The book was compiled by poet Ann Quinn, who also led the class. Ann was the first-place winner in the 2015 Bethesda Literary Arts Festival poetry contest and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. She is Yellow Arrow’s poetry editor.

Eight poets, ranging from beginners to those with published books of poetry, participated in the monthly poetry workshop and contributed to the book. While the majority are from the Baltimore area, others hail from San Diego, Charlotte, and Detroit.

The cover is an acrylic painting with mixed media created by Baltimore artist Claudia Cameron.

Paperback and PDF versions of Poetry is Life are now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. If interested in purchasing more than one paperback copy for friends and family, check out our discounted wholesale prices here. You can also search for Poetry is Life wherever you purchase your books including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

And don’t forget to join us for a reading of Poetry is Life on February 6 at 3:00 pm. Find out more here.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. If interested in writing a review of Poetry is Life or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com for more information.

Kapua Iao 1/25/22 Kapua Iao 1/25/22

Awakening: Drawing Inspiration from Yellow Arrow’s 2022 Value

By Annie Marhefka

Happy new year, Yellow Arrow community.

Each year, staff and board at Yellow Arrow come together to select our value for the year—one word that reflects where we currently are on our journey and one that encompasses all that we are embracing and aspiring to in the year ahead. Last year, we chose EMERGE as our value, following 2020’s theme of REFUGE, where we focused on creating a safe place, a shelter for our community. In 2021, we anticipated an emergence—metaphorically, as we navigated our individual journeys in isolation for much of the year, and physically, as we had paused many of our programs as an organization and as a society.

Though we are not out of the proverbial woods of the global pandemic yet, we can sense a change—a revival, a rousing of the senses. We have learned, we have grown, we have changed, as individuals, as an organization, and as a community. There is a collective newfound awareness of what deeply matters to us, and our focus this year is on embracing that change as we ignite the way forward. Yes, there is much still for us to mourn and contemplate and grieve. But on this morning, the start of 2022, we choose to AWAKEN.

For the past two years, Yellow Arrow has had to pause or modify many of our programs in response to the epidemic and its impact on our operations. For 2022, we are excited about the opportunity to pave a path forward into a new day and as such, our chosen value is AWAKEN. Things will be different, certainly, but we have learned incredible lessons about our resilience, our collective passions, and our literary community’s needs and shared hopes. These lessons will serve as the springboard for our future direction.

If isolation and distancing have had a positive impact, it is that we have been encouraged to awaken our senses to those around us. Compassion and empathy have become necessities and we have pushed ourselves to be more present: to see, hear, smell, taste, touch what is around us more deeply and thoughtfully in order to understand what others are feeling. This awakening of the senses is not just present in how we feel internally, but in the stories we share with others, and Yellow Arrow hopes to inspire our community of writers and readers to incorporate those senses within our written words.

Awakening also signals a new beginning, a fresh way of working and being together. At Yellow Arrow, we have committed to reinstating our core programs in new ways, with a virtual writing residency, online writing workshops, and expanded digital support for our readers and writers. If and when the opportunity to gather in person arises, we will fully embrace it with a focus on safely fostering our mission. But for now, we will look for new ways to spark our creative lights.

And to awaken also means to open our eyes wider, to dig deeper into the background and grow our individual and collective awareness of what is happening around us. We have always had a solid foundation of women writers and a focus on supporting those with voices that have been marginalized by old systems. This year, we aim to expand the diversity of writers and readers we work with even further, in an effort to further support underrepresented populations in the literary arts community. We have brought on LaWanda Stone as Director of Diversity and Inclusion and look forward to the passion she brings to expanding our outreach and incorporating these values in all of the work that we do.

While we present our 2022 value to you with a message of hope and renewal, we also know that many of you are continuing to suffer—whether it be from mental health issues, physical issues, (COVID-19 related or otherwise), or just the tremendous burden that weighs on us as we navigate through the challenges we face in the world around us, and within our own homes. Some of you may not feel ready to take on this changed world just yet. If that is you, please rest. We will be here when you are ready to AWAKEN.

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

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

Reintroducing Yellow Arrow’s 2022 [virtual] Writing Residency

Application Opens February 7!

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

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

Requirements:

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

Who Should Apply:

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

Where will you write?

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

What we hope you will gain:

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

What we hope you will give:

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

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

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

Kapua Iao 1/18/22 Kapua Iao 1/18/22

Writing Groups: Why or Why Not?

By Angela Firman, written December 2021

I almost didn’t show up that first night. I was cranky after another day in quarantine chasing my four-year-old son while juggling my daughter’s virtual learning schedule. I sank onto my bed and closed my eyes, desperately wanting a nap. “It’s the first session,” I reasoned with myself, “I have to at least check it out.” With trepidation, I logged into my laptop and clicked the Zoom link to my first writing workshop with Wildfire Magazine. That split-second decision changed my life.

I have identified as a writer for as long as I can remember, but no one knows it. There is a box hidden in the farthest corner of my closet full of my journals dating back to kindergarten. A reader is hard-pressed to find a descriptive detail among any of the drivel I narrated year after year, yet the emotion nearly leaps off the page. The hastily scrawled letters and trailing sentences reveal my urgent need to write. Growing up, I consistently received compliments about my writing from teachers and relatives who claimed I was “a natural.” I didn’t understand what made them say that because I never tried to be good at it. In fact, it directly contradicted my experience in algebra and chemistry where I put in an excruciating amount of effort yet received the lowest grades of my school career.

My journaling tapered off after college as I became consumed with my work as a teacher and then eventually as a mom. It wasn’t until a cancer diagnosis at the age of 34 sent me into a year of treatment involving chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery that I picked up the pen again. As at other points in my life, although not as intensely, I could not ignore the urge within me to write. There were points when I was seized with such intense emotion that the pen nearly jumped into my hand; the only relief from my scattered brain and breaking heart was to write—however incoherent. Dumping my thoughts onto the page in fits and starts, in sentences and phrases, in squiggles and stabs, calmed my heart and cleared my mind. This was especially true in the months following treatment. I was fortunate to have the chance to escape my identity as a cancer patient, but I struggled to pinpoint who I was after a traumatizing year. A soft-voiced writer in southern California gave me my first clue.

April Stearns, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Wildfire Magazine, published my words first. Seeing my piece in print was as terrifying as it was electrifying. I felt exposed seeing my thoughts out in the world, but hearing that other women resonated with my story validated my urge to write. I felt like a toddler first learning to walk who is finally ready to release her firm grasp on the adult thumbs above her. I had heard I was a good writer before, and I even felt it myself when I emerged from an especially fruitful journaling session, but the publication was the affirmation that allowed me to forge ahead.

The publication in Wildfire was also how I found myself logging into a writing workshop hosted by April on a spring evening in 2020. During a block of writing time, I lifted my eyes from my notebook to spy on the other attendees hunched over their notebooks. Here were six other women like me, navigating their own battle with breast cancer, who felt the need to write. Some of us signed up for the workshop in search of community, some for the dedicated time to write, and some, like me, for the chance to learn. I was only an hour into it, and I had already tried two or three new techniques April suggested for bringing a scene to life. Although my low self-confidence prevented me from sharing what I wrote the first night, I was inspired by the other women’s courage. They brazenly shared newly written drafts full of unfinished thoughts and void of any coherent structure. The culture of the group over the next four weeks was so inclusive and supportive that I ended up sharing my own unruly, fragmented drafts multiple times during all our remaining meetings. As we got to know one another our responses moved from conspiratorial nods and thoughtful “mmhmms” to “I love that word choice” or “The imagery is stunning.” After participating in April’s workshops for another six months, and publishing more pieces in Wildfire, I was feeling confident and thick-skinned enough to start getting a bit bruised: to start receiving constructive feedback.

As it happened, one of the members of our writing group, Melody Mansfield, was a published author and former writing teacher. Mind-reader could be added to her resume because, just as I realized I was ready to take more risks as a writer, she offered to lead a second writing group geared for women who wanted to improve their writing. I eagerly logged in alongside five other women each Tuesday morning to drink in the sage advice and brilliant insight Melody offered each of us as we took turns sharing our writing. Each session was devoted to one writer. We heard the author read, then she muted herself and listened as the other women, with Melody’s guidance, refined her piece. We began by stating in the shortest way possible what the piece was about, then we offered up our compliments before explaining points of confusion. Masterfully woven into our discussions were lessons from Melody about writing techniques such as verisimilitude and economy of language. We ended by gushing about the parts of the piece we could not live without.

This group, The Refiners, as we came to call ourselves, improved my writing technically and stylistically, but that isn’t why I continue to log in each Tuesday. These women stopped being my “writing buddies” a while ago and have become some of my dearest friends who make me more than a better writer; they make me a better person. For through their writing, their feedback, and their endless words of affirmation I have learned the power of showing up for others. I have learned that being persistent in pursuing the things you enjoy can lead to much more than you ever imagined, and that hidden within your passions are unknown loves just waiting to be found.

To learn more about Wildfire, you can find their archives here and their workshops here.

Angela Firman is a Midwesterner at heart living a Pacific Northwest life with her best friend and their hilarious, sometimes demanding, roommates aged 4 and 8. Angela is an avid reader, a closet-cross-stitcher, and a fervent writer. While she has always enjoyed journaling, writing became a source of healing for Angela after being diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer at the age of 33. She found a place in the literary world in a writing group for breast cancer survivors—women who have grown to be some of her dearest friends—and now at The University of Washington where she is earning a certificate in editing. Her nonfiction writing has been published in Wildfire Magazine, Open Minds Quarterly, You Might Need To Hear This, and Press Pause. You can find her on Instagram @angelafirman11.

*****

Kapua Iao 1/11/22 Kapua Iao 1/11/22

Meet a Board Member: Jessica Gregg

Yellow Arrow Publishing is incredibly excited to officially reintroduce Board Secretary Jessica Gregg to the Yellow Arrow family. Jessica is a former journalist whose day job is now in public relations. Her poetry chapbook, News from This Lonesome City, was published in 2019, the same year she served as one of Yellow Arrow’s Writer-in-Residence. She is always looking for something new to write about.

Jessica adds, “I am very excited about the Poetry is Life book [set for release February 1] that is coming together under the direction of Ann Quinn (Poetry Editor) and Kapua Iao (Editor-in-Chief). I am eager to help spread the word about this project and about Yellow Arrow in general. We are a wonderful resource and a wonderful organization, and I think there are many writers who would benefit from knowing about us.”

She recently took some time to answer some questions for us. Show her some love in the comments or on Facebook/Instagram!

Tell us a little something about yourself:

My first chapbook of poetry, News from This Lonesome City, was published in 2019, and I just finished my second one this year. It’s called All the Wives Got Furs, and I am currently searching for a good home for its poems.

What do you love most about Baltimore?

Baltimore is not pretentious. It’s quirky and full of stories, which makes it a great place to create.

How did you get involved with Yellow Arrow and what do you do?

I was a Writer-in-Residence in 2019, an experience that was invaluable. I volunteered with Yellow Arrow before the pandemic and then recently joined the board. I also am part of Ann Quinn’s “Poetry is Life” class, and we are putting together a book of our work, based on the class, which has been a fun process. Yellow Arrow will publish the book next month!

What are you working on currently?

I am actually writing a young adult manuscript that has two main characters and not surprisingly, one who has been known to break into poetry.

What genre do you write and why?

I write poetry. I love wordplay and all the different formats that poems can take. I also feel like the ‘social media age’ is a perfect time for poetry. People have set ideas about the genre, but really, the genre is full of surprises.

Who is your favorite writer and why?

There are so many great poets out there, but a poet whose work I often return to is Jane Kenyon. I also carry a purse big enough to always hold a book, and Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is currently resting in there; he is another favorite. Finally, I am a big fan of Pádraig Ó Tuama’s podcast “Poetry Unbound,” which is a great place to discover writers I have not read.

Who has inspired and/or supported you most in your writing journey?

The blue-collar work ethic of my colleagues in my past journalism life inspires me to keep going because they showed up to work and wrote every day. That has stuck with me. But many local poets have inspired me with their excellence—Ann Quinn, celeste doaks, Erica Dawson. Gwen Van Velsor also inspired me by starting Yellow Arrow.

What do you love most about writing?

I love crafting sentences, playing with words, and just the general act of creating a story. In other words, I really like the process. There is a lot of joy in it for me, even though I don’t always write about the joyful.

What advice do you have for new writers?

Keep writing. First and foremost, keep writing. But also look for a community that can support you and encourage your progress.

*****

We are so fortunate to have Jessica join our team; she has provided (and will provide) much support throughout the fall and into 2022! 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 12/14/21 Kapua Iao 12/14/21

The Light Reflects Our Path: A Thank You to Family and Friends

Dear supporters, authors, readers, and staff,

As we reflect on all we have endured and accomplished this year, we begin with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. This year, like the last, has been laced with challenges as we have continued to navigate the changing landscape in the arts and literary community, and the significant events that have impacted small businesses and nonprofit organizations like ours around the country and the world. During these times, we have seen that literature and words are more critical to us than ever before—we must sustain our ability to support those who have stories to share and provide our community with the tools and resources that lift their voices up. We could not have succeeded in doing so this year at Yellow Arrow Publishing without the unwavering support of our authors, our readers, our staff, our volunteers, and our invaluable supporters.

We began this year in reflection, with the release of Yellow Arrow Journal on the theme RENASCENCE. In RENASCENCE, we were taken by the awareness and appreciation for our roots, our histories, our shared and unique experiences. Our guest editor, Taína, shared her words on the power of pen and ink:

“In the correct hand . . . paper and ink are tools of resistance. Of rebellion. Like my ancestor etching petroglyphs on the caves of Isla Mona, it is daring to make permanent a fleeting existence. The fuel which has ignited revolutions and birthed nations. In the hands of the silenced, paper and ink is a re-claimation. A renascence. It is ours.”

We explored our stories and cultures with a lens of both nostalgia and awakening, a reflection of our common and unique experiences and a call for change.

Then with our EMERGE: Pandemic Stories and Coming Into View zines, we faced the trauma and the victories brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and let our voices play a role in our growth and transformation. The zines were based on the Yellow Arrow 2021 yearly theme EMERGE and the desire of all who participated in the zines to expand, develop, and come to light. We hope to continue this zine tradition each year with our chosen yearly theme.

And in our November journal, ANFRACTUOUS, we celebrated the resilience and persistence of those who twist and turn but do not break. As Guest Editor Keshni Naicker Washington states in her introduction, “Of all the stories we tell ourselves and others, the most significant follow the words ‘I am . . .’” This unbreakable spirit is what drives us from this period of emergence into a new year and a new perspective.

We were thrilled to publish three phenomenal chapbooks—No Batteries Required (Ellen Dooling Reynard, April 2021), St. Paul Street Provocations (Patti Ross, July 2021), and Listen (Ute Carson, October 2021)—and have just announced the incredibly talented writers we will publish in 2022: Amanda Baker, Darah Schillinger, and Nikita Rimal Sharma. You can learn more about these and last year’s authors here.

Pick up a copy of all of our publications in our bookstore and please show your support to our 2021 authors by watching them read their pieces on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.

This year, we were also able to reflect at an organizational level, thinking back on our foundations (check out Founder Gwen Van Velsor’s blog on this topic here) and thinking ahead to our next steps. We have set in place our goals and plans for 2022, which include expanded workshop offerings and events for writers, the resurgence of our Writers-in-Residence program (stay tuned for an announcement about this in January!), and a focus on further diversifying our work, both in the words and writers we publish, and the folks behind-the-scenes who drive us forward. We have expanded our Board of Directors and are set to introduce a new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement.

Finally, in an effort to provide sustainability for the initiatives we have planned for next year, we have launched our fundraising campaign: Turning the Next Page. This campaign will run through year-end; if you have not donated yet and are able to, we would so greatly appreciate your support! Funds go towards supporting tomorrow’s authors today.

Yellow Arrow depends on the support of those who value our work; your continued support means everything to us. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@DonateYAP), or US mail (PO Box 102, Baltimore, MD 21057). You can further support us by purchasing one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, joining our newsletter (bottom of page), following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or subscribing to our YouTube channel.

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

Sincerely,

Annie Marhefka and the Yellow Arrow Publishing team

Kapua Iao 12/7/21 Kapua Iao 12/7/21

Meet the 2022 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 2022 Yellow Arrow Pushcart Prize Nominees!

**Ute Carson**

“Talking and Listening,” *Listen*
~ Like inhaling and exhaling, /we need both. /By exchanging stories, /we can reach understanding. ~

Ute Carson, a German-born writer from youth, has published two novels, a novella, a volume of stories, four collections of poetry, and numerous essays, here and abroad. Her poetry was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize before. She resides in Austin, Texas with her husband. They have three daughters, six grandchildren, a horse, and a clowder of cats. Please visit her at utecarson.com.

Ute was featured in Yellow Arrow Journal’s (Re)Formation issue and her .Writers.on.Writing. was added to the Yellow Arrow website August 2021. Ute’s chapbook Listen was just released in the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

**María Elena Montero**

“Four Quarters,” *Yellow Arrow Journal*, Vol. VI, No. 2 **Anfractuous**
~ I was four quarters at peace. The whole of me, sitting there highlighted by streaks of auburns and bronzes. Four quarters at peace with owing an explanation to no one. ~

María Elena Montero is a writer born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. She is AfroLatina of Cuban-Dominican descent and fluent in Spanish, rumbao, and bachata (not necessarily in that order). María Elena’s essays have appeared in The Acentos Review, in the award-winning SankShuned Photography Art Book, the anthology Peínate: Hair Battles Between Latina Mothers and Daughters, and the literary magazine midnight & indigo. When she’s not bird watching, teaching yoga, or writing, you can find María Elena at meechiemail.com and her CNF “Four Quarters” in Yellow Arrow Journal ANFRACTUOUS.

**LEAH MYERS**

“A Writer Who Can’t Read,” *Yellow Arrow Journal* Vol. VI, No. 1 **Renascence**
~ A writer who can’t read is a sorry sight. When I don’t understand a language, I want to skim over it. I want to let my eyes gloss its twists and bends so that I do not have to feel lesser for not understanding. ~

Leah Myers is an Urban Native American writer with roots in Georgia, Arizona, and Washington, and is currently pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of New Orleans. Her work has previously appeared in Craft Literary Magazine, High Shelf Press, Newfound, and elsewhere. Leah is a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe and can be found on Instagram and Twitter @n8v_wordsmith, or at leahmyers.com.

You can learn more about Leah in her Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W. from July 2021 and a “Writer Who Can’t Read” in Yellow Arrow Journal RENASCENCE.

**Melissa Nunez**

“Alight,” EMERGE: *Coming Into View*
~ I am accustomed to the point of tuning out, at times, the mournful coos of the white-tipped doves, the cackling caws of grackles, mimics of mockingbirds, even the self-announcing great kiskadee; their quotidian shades and shapes quickly perceived and processed, not penetrating past the subliminal. ~

Melissa Nunez is an avid reader, writer, and homeschooling mother of three. She lives in the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas—a predominantly Latin@ community. She writes both essays and poetry inspired by observation of the natural world, the dynamics of relationships, and the question of belonging. Her work has been featured in Folio, Yellow Arrow Journal, and others. Melissa has a flash essay, “Je Vois la Vie en Rose,” that came out in Issue 7 of the online magazine eucalyptus & rose while “Regeneration” was published in FEED Issue 2.25 and “Leche y Miel” was included in Issue 2: Día de los Muertos of Alebrijes Review. Her essay “Silent” is forthcoming in Issue 21 of Minerva Rising. You can find her on Twitter @MelissaKNunez.

Melissa contributed her nonfiction piece “What is Mine” to Yellow Arrow Journal’s Vol. VI, No. 1 issue on RENASCENCE. And “Alight” is from EMERGE: Coming Into View. You can find her prerecorded reading of “Alight” on Yellow Arrow’s YouTube channel. You can learn more about Melissa in her November 2021 Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W.

**Ellen Dooling Reynard**

“No Batteries Required,” *No Batteries Required*
~ I write in pencil, the original computer /of pine wood, graphite, and rubber, /instead of metal, plastic, /and that mysterious something called circuitry. ~

Ellen Dooling Reynard spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Montana. Raised on myths and fairy tales, the sense of wonder has never left her. A one-time editor of Parabola Magazine, her chapbook, No Batteries Required, was published in April 2021 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. Her poetry has also been published by Lighten Up On Line, Persimmon, Silver Blade, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Muddy River Poetry Review. Now retired, she has relocated to Temecula, California, where she is working on a series of ekphrastic poems based on (and including) the work of her late husband, the French painter Paul Reynard (1927–2005). Follow Ellen on Facebook and connect with her at ellendoolingreynard.com.

**Patti Ross**

“Indemnity,” *St. Paul Street Provocations*
~ It was your ancestors who started the fight. /Don't you see the need to make right? ~

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. Follow her blog at littlepisuniverse.com.

Her poignant debut chapbook, St. Paul Street Provocations, can be found in the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

If you haven’t had the opportunity yet, please make sure to donate to our Turning the Next Page fundraising campaign. Yellow Arrow is able to share stories of writers who identify as women because of our incredible community of supporters. Your assistance contributes to the publication of our journal as well as our incredible chapbooks and zines.

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 11/30/21 Kapua Iao 11/30/21

Behind the Issue: ANFRACTUOUS (Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No. 2)

By Keshni Naicker Washington

“Of all the stories we tell ourselves and others, the most significant follow the words ‘I am . . .’”

To be a writer, poet, or artist is to be an outsider. We give form to our experiences, creating channels and access points for others to connect into in the process. And once a thing has form, we can choose to carry it, put it down, or step beyond it. Belonging is not something we negotiate with the external world, it’s inside us.

To be a writer, poet, or artist is to be brave enough to press the submit button that sends your work into the hands of strangers, risking it being received with resonance or not, and being willing to do that over and over again.

As guest editor of Yellow Arrow Journal ANFRACTUOUS, I had the unique opportunity to be on the other side of that button for the first time. I remembered the sting of the rejections I have received as a writer and so I was apprehensive about the task of choosing between submissions. But the process followed by the team and helmed by Kapua Iao, Editor-in-Chief, laid out a firm path. Due to the volume of submissions, I was soon chin-deep into the “blind” reading process (reading the pieces without any author identification) with Yellow Arrow staff members as we voted on our ‘favorites.’ The high caliber and vast landscape covered by the entries took me on many worthwhile journeys. I remain in awe of the courage and authenticity with which each piece was shared by its creator. The responsibility of making the final choices weighed me down for several days but it also felt right that it should be so difficult.

The Yellow Arrow team’s experience and wisdom certainly smoothed the process and steered my adherence to the theme of the issue—ANFRACTUOUS—and the pieces’ cohesion with each other as we strung them together intentionally to create a progressive and overarching story of the twists and turns of belonging-ness. ANFRACTUOUS starts with the etherealness of a cloud and the search for a home in the opening poem “Homebound” by Sylvia Niederberger and ends with the insight of hindsight on a full life lived in “At Last” by Mary Marca. Along the way we get a peek into the search for belonging that spans not only the continent of North America but across oceans to Africa and Europe and India, as well.

The pieces in this Yellow Arrow Journal collection explore these ideas of belonging-ness and the winding and intricate paths of diverse human experience. Some wrestle with the present-day and some cast a searchlight on the past. Meaning is examined in the land or places we leave or cleave to. And ultimately all included authors are standing apart and forging their own sense of belonging-ness as they bravely own their story and offer it to the world as a signal fire for others between these pages. For this, they (and everyone who submitted) have my sincere admiration and gratitude, and so, too, does the staff of Yellow Arrow Publishing, who give their time to create spaces where these signal fires can exist and breathe and take pride in stewarding new voices into the literary world.

Life is a process of becoming. I believe that the purpose of art and writing is to help us hold a mirror to the world and ourselves.

Paperback and PDF versions are available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. Discounts are also available (here) if you would like to purchase copies for friends and family (minimum purchase of five). A great opportunity with Christmas just around the corner! You can also search for Yellow Arrow Journal on any e-book device or anywhere you purchase books, including Amazon and most other distribution channels.

And if you are interested in reading what our incredible authors thought of the theme, pick up a copy of the PDF version along with the paperback. Included within the PDF version only are the authors’ and Keshni’s responses to the following question: what/who/where was a turning point toward acceptance/belonging? Take some time and reflect on your own response. Is there a turning point for you?

One final note. With this blog, we are excited to release the prerecorded reading of Anfractuous, “An Exploration of Belonging: The Anfractuous Reading,” on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel today.

Get the full reading here and please support Yellow Arrow by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

I hope by reading the offerings in this issue and listening to the authors’ voices you will be inspired to reflect on your own identification that follows the words “I am . . .”

It has been an honor to be invited by the Yellow Arrow team to contribute to such a mission in the creation of the ANFRACTUOUS issue. Available now! Go get your copy!

*****

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 11/23/21 Kapua Iao 11/23/21

Accepting Yourself: Yellow Arrow Journal (Vol. VI, No. 2) ANFRACTUOUS

“Of all the stories we tell ourselves and others, the most significant follow the words ‘I am . . .’”

Keshni Naicker Washington’s first sentence to the introduction of ANFRACTUOUS, Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. VI, No. 2 (fall 2021), sets the tone for the entire issue. One that explores the idea of belonging and unbelonging; as Keshni, the issue’s wonderful guest editor, explains, “. . . we become some self-fashioned mosaic of belonging unique to our own choices and the intricate twists of our experiences.” What does it mean to belong and who gets to decide when/how someone belongs?

When we first announced the theme ANFRACTUOUS (full of windings and intricate turnings, things that twist and turn but do not break), we weren’t sure what to expect, if submitters would explore the conscious/unconscious decisions that make us who we are. But they did, and we laughed and cried and commiserated and sympathized. Our hearts soared while reading the over one hundred submissions we received. Thank you to everyone who took the time to send us their stories. Ultimately, we had to narrow down our finalists; the chosen pieces and contributors resonated with Keshni, the Yellow Arrow team, and each other by weaving a beautiful story about belonging-ness. We hope that you, our dear readers, are ready to take this voyage with our authors and with Keshni. Thank you, Keshni, for putting together such an extraordinary issue.

Paperback and PDF versions are now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. Discounts are also available (here) if you would like to purchase copies for friends and family (minimum purchase of five). A great opportunity with Christmas just around the corner! You can also search for Yellow Arrow Journal on any e-book device or anywhere you purchase books, including Amazon and most other distribution channels.

One final note, don’t forget to check out our prerecorded reading of Anfractuous, “An Exploration of Belonging: The Anfractuous Reading,” which will be released on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel on November 30. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek.

We hope you enjoy reading ANFRACTUOUS as much as we enjoyed creating it. Thank you for your continued encouragement of Yellow Arrow Publishing and the women involved in ANFRACTUOUS.

*****

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 11/16/21 Kapua Iao 11/16/21

Gratitude is a Divine Emotion: Yellow Arrow Staff

By Kapua Iao

“Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.”

from Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

One of the many ways Yellow Arrow Publishing encourages women writers and women in publishing is through inclusion within the organization itself. We welcome (and thrive with) our volunteers and interns, not only for our own benefit but to also (hopefully) provide a prospective future publisher with some necessary tools and knowledge about the publishing world. And even if a volunteer/intern does not plan to continue within the publishing world, the tools and knowledge of working in a women-led, collaborative organization. One that champions the different and the unique. One that looks for partners and allies rather than simple connections, whether from our own Baltimore community (such as Towson University!) or from further afar.

As Editor-in-Chief, it would be impossible to organize, create, and publish without the incredible help of our volunteer staff and interns. They provide the thought process behind each journal by picking each issue’s theme and reading/voting on each submitted piece. They then read through the chosen submissions and edit them carefully and thoughtfully, not to change the voice of the author but to ensure that the voice flourishes. They provide continuous feedback and proofread the final product before release. And the same goes for our published chapbooks; the process of forming something for publication is thoughtfully long but fulfilling, nonetheless.

We try to find each volunteer, each intern, space in our organization to grow and flourish in the area they are most interested in (and of course where we need the most help!). Past staff members have worked at our live events and at Yellow Arrow House. They hand bound our publications and put as much love and tenderness into each copy as we could hope. Now that we are a mostly virtual publishing company, they focus on editing as well as writing blogs and press releases. They create promotional material and images for our authors and explore or research for future marketing campaigns, events, and collaborations. And above all else, they support. Not only me but our authors as well. I am so thankful to have had them with me on this journey.

So let’s introduce our newest staff members (editorial associates mentioned in an earlier post still volunteering with Yellow Arrow (see here) are Bailey Drumm and Siobhan McKenna). Each has my appreciation, including Michelle Lin who recently left Yellow Arrow to follow her own arrows.

Katherine Chung

Chung, Katherine.png — Lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland
*YA position*: marketing intern, June-Aug 2021
*What did you do*? I created content for the Yellow Arrow social media pages, edited and proofread their website, and wrote personal narrative blogs.
*Did you go to Towson University*? Yes! I will be graduating in December 2021.
*What are you currently working on*? I am currently working as a marketing intern for Towson’s dining halls. I work alongside the head of marketing and am associated with Chartwells student success program. I am also working on a short story for a fiction writing class that I am currently taking. Finally, I am volunteering on-and-off campus since I am in a community service fraternity.

Katherine Chung is a senior at Towson University studying English and Creative Writing. She will graduate in December 2021. Katherine currently lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland with her parents. During her free time, she loves to write short stories and memoirs, read young adult books, and update her blog. To read her blog, visit katchung13.wixsite.com/website.

Angela Firman

Firman, Angela.jpg — Lives in Tacoma, Washington
*YA position*: editorial associate, Sept 2021-present
*What have you done so far*? I read submissions and copyedit for the *Yellow Arrow Journal*. I also proofread Yellow Arrow’s first author/staff zines, EMERGE: *Pandemic Stories* and *Coming Into View*.
*What are you currently working on*? I am working toward earning an Editing Certificate from the University of Washington in June 2022. I write and refine my work with a group of fellow breast cancer survivors each week. We met in a *Wildfire Magazine* writing workshop in early 2020, and we’ve continued to collaborate ever since.

Angela Firman is a Midwesterner at heart living a Pacific Northwest life with her best friend and their hilarious, sometimes demanding, roommates aged 4 and 8. Angela is an avid reader, a closet cross-stitcher, and a fervent writer. While she has always enjoyed journaling, writing became a source of healing for Angela after being diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer at the age of 33. She found a place in the literary world in a writing group for breast cancer survivors—women who have grown to be some of her dearest friends—and now at the University of Washington where she is earning a certificate in editing. Her nonfiction writing has been published in Wildfire Magazine, Open Minds Quarterly, You Might Need To Hear This, and Press Pause. You can find her on Instagram @angelafirman11.

Lisa Roscoe

Roscoe, Lisa.jpg — Lives in Raleigh, North Carolina
*YA position*: volunteer/reader, May 2021-present
*What do you do*? Offer support remotely by compiling and organizing an index of bookstores carrying Yellow Arrow publications, as well as reading poetry chapbook submissions.
*What are you currently working on*? I’m currently working on a collection of poems focusing on phenomenology as a theme.

Lisa Roscoe is an instructional designer, writer, and voiceover artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has created educational content for global tech companies and international nonprofit Goodwill Industries. Outside of her nine-to-five, Lisa practices creative expression in the form of poetry and black-and-white photography.

Darah Schillinger

Schillinger, Darah.jpeg — Lives in Perry Hall, Maryland
*YA position*: publications intern, May-Aug 2021
*What did you do*? Created promotional images for social media, proofread, and copyedited.
*What are you currently working on*? I’m working on my next poetry collection, and I am currently in my last year at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. I have also become president of my school literary magazine, *AVATAR*, and am overseeing the acceptance and formatting of student literary works for the fall publication.

Darah Schillinger is a senior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland working toward her undergraduate degree in English Literature, Creative Writing, and Philosophy. She has interned for EcoTheo Review before her summer at Yellow Arrow, and she has had poetry published in both her school literary journal, AVATAR, and in the Spillwords Press Haunted Holidays series for 2020. Darah currently lives in Perry Hall, Maryland with her parents and her dog, and when she’s not writing poems, she’s usually drinking tea. After graduation, she hopes to continue writing new work as she pursues a career in publishing.

Rachel Vinyard

Vinyard, Rachel.jpg — Lives in Pasadena, Maryland
*YA position*: publications intern, Sept 2021-present
*What do you do*? Copyedit and proofread, read journal and chapbook submissions, make Canva promo images and swag, organize documents and add to research projects, and write and research for blog posts.
*Did you go to Towson University*? Yes, I am graduating this December.
*Did you work for Towson’s Grub Street Literary Magazine*? Yes, I was the fiction editor.
*What are you currently working on*? I am currently finishing my bachelor’s degree at Towson and working on writing my own chapbook and various short stories. I’ve also rediscovered my love of reading, and I’m finding a lot of new genres I enjoy.

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. If interested in joining us as an editorial associate or intern, email staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com.

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 11/9/21 Kapua Iao 11/9/21

How does it feel to share your words?

Screen Shot 2021-08-29 at 11.07.14 AM.png

By Katherine Chung, written August 2021

I have always found that the scariest part of being a writer is when you are allowed to share your writing with others whether it’s online or in person. I think that this is because I have not been in the correct mindset or environment to share my writing during this pandemic. Mostly, my writing was shared for school assignments or self-therapy, and recently I have used it as a coping mechanism for overcoming grief and other tragic events that I have experienced as a teenager.

The first time that I shared my writing with a group of people was when I was a sophomore at McDaniel College. I was taking a memoir and personal essay class and did not realize that I would have to share my writing with my classmates every other week. It was my first English class in college, so I did not know what I signed up for. Each week we were assigned a topic and were told to write a short personal essay, and then the following week we would share our stories and get feedback from other students on how to improve on the second or third drafts.

One week, the topic was to write about the worst or best day of our lives. I could not think of the best day of my life, so I wrote about the former, which was the day that my sister passed away when I was a junior in high school. My classmates applauded me for sharing that story and a few of them even said that they could relate to my experience of having a sibling with multiple disabilities. From that moment on, I always felt triggered, anxious, and scared to share my writing because I felt like the only stories I had to share post-grieving were the most tragic and most sad, centered on my experiences in college while feeling alone in my journey as a new only child (click here to read the piece that I wrote for my first writing workshop).

Most of my high school writing teachers were nice and understanding about my learning disabilities, which helped me overcome my fear of sharing my writing since I was at a school for kids who needed accommodations as I did. As I got older and moved on to college, it became harder to cope with my dysgraphia and rare energy deficiency disorder. It was hard for me to take notes in class and study them since I could not read my own handwriting most of the time; it was difficult to keep up with four or more classes. I also didn’t get a choice on which professors I would have at McDaniel because some classes only had one option for a teacher (also, notetakers were limited). This was a major disadvantage for me since I work and write better with teachers who understand students who have accommodations. Although McDaniel had a few setbacks for me, I still found a great creative writing teacher there who helped me get over my fear of sharing my writing by telling me how strong I was to share my unique stories.

During my Fall 2019 semester, I transferred to Towson University and discovered that some of the professors could be harsher about grammar and editing than the professors at McDaniel. I got over my fear of sharing my words by declaring an English major (you would’ve thought that I chose to study English at McDaniel College, but I studied Psychology and added English as a minor). Then, I decided to become a full-time student in Towson’s Liberal Arts Major since it was something I truly loved and was good at. And I got great encouragement from my new advisor and creative writing teachers at Towson. The larger and more positive environment at Towson has helped me to gain confidence in being a writer with disabilities.

I am now getting ready to go back to Towson University in the fall after the virtual school year. I will be taking the Advanced Creative Writing class where I can workshop and share my writing with other students again. Even though I have not actually shared my writing in person since my sophomore year at McDaniel, I think I am ready this time; I’ve even had opportunities to share my words during the pandemic. In fact, I’m kind of excited. Although I am still nervous about the experience, I think that it is something I have to face if I want to be a writer. And hopefully, there will be other opportunities for me to share my writing other than in class.

******

Do you want to read more from Katherine? Check out her soul-searching creative nonfiction piece in our EMERGE zines, available for a small donation. And if you haven’t had the opportunity yet, please make sure to donate to our Turning the Next Page fundraising campaign. Yellow Arrow is able to share stories of writers who identify as women because of our incredible community of supporters. Your assistance contributes to the publication of our journal as well as our incredible chapbooks and zines.

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 11/2/21 Kapua Iao 11/2/21

Meet the Yellow Arrow Publishing 2022 chapbook authors

By Kapua Iao

In 2020, Yellow Arrow Publishing released its first two chapbooks: Smoke the Peace Pipe (Roz Weaver) and the samurai (Linda M. Crate). Learning how to navigate the world of single-author publications and getting to know the authors was truly rewarding, and we decided to publish three more in 2021:

No Batteries Required (Ellen Dooling Reynard)
St. Paul Street Provocations (Patti Ross)
Listen (Ute Carson)

Moreover, we knew early in 2021 that we wanted to publish chapbook authors in 2022 and opened up submissions during the summer. We then formed a committee to blindly read through our final 45 submissions. Every chapbook received was heart-filled and personal. And because we consider everyone that publishes with Yellow Arrow family, we spent much time really thinking about our decision.

From these initial submissions, we created a shortlist of 15 chapbooks, eventually selecting three to publish in 2022. It was rewarding and difficult to email every submitter letting them know our decision but the process is now done, and we are so excited to work with the three chosen.

So without further ado, let’s meet the 2022 Yellow Arrow chapbook authors!

Sharma, Nikita Rimal.jpg — **Nikita Rimal Sharma**

*The most beautiful garden*

coming April 2022

Nikita Rimal Sharma currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband and dog, Stone, and works at B’More Clubhouse, a community-based mental health nonprofit. She is originally from Kathmandu, Nepal. Nikita is a typical homebody who gets a lot of joy from slow running, short hikes, reading, and deep thoughts. She has always loved writing and started writing at the age of seven when she wrote a fairy tale titled “Star Girls.” Nikita wishes she had saved a copy of it.

Her journey with poetry started when she took the first class organized by Yellow Arrow taught by the lovely Ann Quinn. It’s such a beautiful way of playing with words while processing your emotions. Nikita’s first published poem was in Yellow Arrow Journal (Re)Formation from fall 2020.

The most beautiful garden covers themes such as family, her mother, mental health, South Asian culture, and immigration. These are the different aspects her life is made up of and it was her little attempt to put everything into words.

Darah Schillinger is a rising senior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland studying English Literature with a double minor in Creative Writing and Philosophy. She previously interned for the literary magazine EcoTheo Review in summer 2020 and has had poetry published in both her school literary journal, AVATAR, and in the Spillwords Press Haunted Holidays series for 2020. She was the publications intern for Yellow Arrow for summer 2021. Darah currently lives in Perry Hall, Maryland with her parents, and in her free time, she likes to write poetry and paint. After graduation, she plans to pursue an MA in Creative Writing and hopes to establish a career in publishing after its completion.

Her chapbook, when the daffodils die, is an assortment of love, loss, and wonder at the world that created us, compiled into a collection of 32 poems. Each poem has natural imagery, but the story line itself is about finding steadiness in our love of nature even if romantic love (the love we spend so much energy on) falls short. There are also feminist themes and body positivity incorporated throughout because Darah felt they best represent her and what she wishes to contribute with her work.

**Amanda Baker**

*What is Another Word for Intimacy?*

coming October 2022

Amanda Baker believes that we are more authentic as our childlike selves than we are as adults. We are more likely to share our truth and live our truth as children, but who says we have to stop. Amanda is a mental health therapist, 200-hour yoga instructor, and poet from Baltimore, Maryland. She attended the University of Maryland School of Social Work and James Madison University. She is a mother of her four-year-old son, Dylan, and enjoys time in nature. Amanda has self-published a poetry collection that includes written work from her early teens into her 30s. You may find her book ASK: A Collection of Poetry, Lyrics, and Words on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

She believes we all have the capacity to find our true selves by connecting back to our passions as children. Hers was and still is art, imagination, dance, and poetry. Amanda stopped writing around 18 and did not return until about two years ago, at age 31. We all have a story to share, and What is Another Word for Intimacy? is the heart and soul of a snapshot of her story.

Amanda started writing again. She wrote to fill the void. She wrote to create connections. She wrote to find intimacy.

Her writing has allowed her to escape detachment. Dissociation. Numbness. Amanda’s writing opened her eyes to imagination and an ability to form new relationships. She experienced existentialism. Confusion. Loss. Excitement. Lust. Love. Heartbreak. True vitality in moving from fear to vulnerability, to intimacy. What is Another Word for Intimacy? takes readers through emotions, connections, and memories, which resembles true fluctuations of intimacy in words and present mindfulness.

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. We are so proud of everyone we publish at Yellow Arrow. You can learn more about all our authors here and support them by purchasing publications in the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

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

(not) just a matchstick

The places that made me

Growth

Maybe, this is how we can make the world a better place?

UpSpring

Application Opens February 7!

Ute Carson

“Talking and Listening,” Listen

~ Like inhaling and exhaling, /we need both. /By exchanging stories, /we can reach understanding. ~

María Elena Montero

“Four Quarters,” Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No. 2 Anfractuous

~ I was four quarters at peace. The whole of me, sitting there highlighted by streaks of auburns and bronzes. Four quarters at peace with owing an explanation to no one. ~

LEAH MYERS

“A Writer Who Can’t Read,” Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. VI, No. 1 Renascence

~ A writer who can’t read is a sorry sight. When I don’t understand a language, I want to skim over it. I want to let my eyes gloss its twists and bends so that I do not have to feel lesser for not understanding. ~

Melissa Nunez

“Alight,” EMERGE: Coming Into View

Ellen Dooling Reynard

“No Batteries Required,” No Batteries Required

~ I write in pencil, the original computer /of pine wood, graphite, and rubber, /instead of metal, plastic, /and that mysterious something called circuitry. ~

Patti Ross

“Indemnity,” St. Paul Street Provocations

~ It was your ancestors who started the fight. /Don't you see the need to make right? ~

Katherine Chung

Lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland

YA position: marketing intern, June-Aug 2021

What did you do? I created content for the Yellow Arrow social media pages, edited and proofread their website, and wrote personal narrative blogs.

Did you go to Towson University? Yes! I will be graduating in December 2021.

Angela Firman

Lives in Tacoma, Washington

YA position: editorial associate, Sept 2021-present

What have you done so far? I read submissions and copyedit for the Yellow Arrow Journal. I also proofread Yellow Arrow’s first author/staff zines, EMERGE: Pandemic Stories and Coming Into View.

Lisa Roscoe

Lives in Raleigh, North Carolina

YA position: volunteer/reader, May 2021-present

What do you do? Offer support remotely by compiling and organizing an index of bookstores carrying Yellow Arrow publications, as well as reading poetry chapbook submissions.

What are you currently working on? I’m currently working on a collection of poems focusing on phenomenology as a theme.

Darah Schillinger

Lives in Perry Hall, Maryland

YA position: publications intern, May-Aug 2021

What did you do? Created promotional images for social media, proofread, and copyedited.

Rachel Vinyard

Lives in Pasadena, Maryland

YA position: publications intern, Sept 2021-present

What do you do? Copyedit and proofread, read journal and chapbook submissions, make Canva promo images and swag, organize documents and add to research projects, and write and research for blog posts.

Did you go to Towson University? Yes, I am graduating this December.

Did you work for Towson’s Grub Street Literary Magazine? Yes, I was the fiction editor.

What are you currently working on? I am currently finishing my bachelor’s degree at Towson and working on writing my own chapbook and various short stories. I’ve also rediscovered my love of reading, and I’m finding a lot of new genres I enjoy.

Nikita Rimal Sharma

The most beautiful garden

coming April 2022

Darah Schillinger

when the daffodils die

coming July 2022

Amanda Baker

What is Another Word for Intimacy?

coming October 2022

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