Yellow Arrow Publishing supports and inspires writers and artists who identify as women through access to publication and the literary arts.

News & Announcements

ORDER a copy of Beyond the Galleons by Isabel Cristina Legarda as a paperback or PDF from the Yellow Arrow bookstore or from most distributors! The stunning cover was designed by Creative Director Alexa Laharty (who also created some beautiful drawings within the poetry chapbook). Learn more about Isabel in a recent interview at yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/dwelling-possibility-interview-isabel-cristina-legarda. Make sure to order your copy of Beyond the Galleons at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/beyond-the-galleons-paperback.

MEET the two other authors Yellow Arrow will publish in 2024: Julie Alden Cullinane and and Candace Walsh. Find out more about the incredible authors and their chapbooks at yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/meet-2024-chapbook-authors and below. We are currently hard at work on Candace’s beautiful collection and can’t wait to start Julie’s. Thank you Julie, Isabel, and Candace for trusting us with your words and letting us go on your book journeys.

CHECK OUT our three chapbooks from 2023: Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman by Ann Weil, Black girl magic & other elixirs by shantell hinton hill, and Swimming in Gilead by Cassie Premo Steele. You can find copies of the chapbooks and past publications in the Yellow Arrow bookstore (click here for wholesale prices) and through most distribution channels. And don’t forget to visit Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK to hear from our 2023 Vignette authors!

CONGRATULATE our 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees: shantell hinton hill, Sarah Josephine Pennington, Cassie Premo Steele, Janna Wagner, and Ann Weil. We are so proud to have had the opportunity to publish their words and appreciate each and every one of them for letting us play a role in their writing journey.

To learn about our submissions and any changes in the future, sign up for our newsletter (below) or like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Publishing With Us

For the past few years, we have been busy creating chapbooks, finding our way back to in-person events, and celebrating all who publish with us! 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. Roz and Linda were and are fantastic writers and fantastic women. In 2021, as we (like everyone else) REEMERGED, we published three more incredible collections, No Batteries Required (Ellen Dooling Reynard), St. Paul Street Provocations (Patti Ross), and Listen (Ute Carson). Our EMERGE zines, Pandemic Stories and Coming Into View, created and edited by past staff member Brenna Ebner, are available as PDFs from the Yellow Arrow bookstore along with prerecorded readings from some of the included EMERGE authors on our YouTube Channel.

With our 2022 AWAKENING, we published the guide Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow, compiled and edited by Ann Quinn in collaboration with students from her 2021 “Poetry is Life” class. You can find the reading of the book on our YouTube channel. Patti Ross had our first in-person reading at the Ivy Bookshop in March for St. Paul Street Provocations (2021). We also had the privilege of working with three local, Baltimore authors with their poetry collections The most beautiful garden (Nikita Rimal Sharma), when the daffodils die (Darah Schillinger), and What is Another Word for Intimacy? (Amanda Baker). In 2022, we also started a new digital publication, Yellow Arrow Vignette, heralded by Vignette Managing Editor Siobhan McKenna. It was great reading our inaugural Vignette authors’ words and listening to their voices at the Awakening Stories reading. In fact, we loved creating and showcasing Vignette so much, that we released the second edition of Vignette SPARK in 2023, celebrating the release with a reading in September. Last year also saw the release of three incredible poetry chapbooks by Ann Weil (Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman), shantell hinton hill (Black girl magic & other elixirs), and Cassie Premo Steele (Swimming in Gilead).

We look forward to publishing more women-identifying voices in the future and ensuring those that have published with us in the past continue to get their voices heard. Publications are available at the YAP store (including wholesale, discount prices) and most online distributors, including your local bookstore. Please note that as a small press we produce a limited number of publications each year. We pour our hearts and souls into each submission and each Yellow Arrow publication and thank everyone for their interest and inquiries. Visit our donations page if you are interested in donating or volunteering.

Click here for an editorial statement from our Editor-in-Chief.

Our Authors

Amanda Baker

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. Her chapbook What is Another Word for Intimacy? was released October 2022. To see the cover and read a recent conversation Amanda had about her collection, click here.

Ute Carson

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. She resides in Austin, Texas with her husband. They have three daughters, six grandchildren, a horse, and a clowder of cats. She was also featured in Yellow Arrow Journal’s (Re)Formation issue. Please visit her at utecarson.com. Ute’s new chapbook Listen was just released in the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

LINDA M. CRATE

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian born in Pittsburgh but raised in Conneautville. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is More Than Bone Music (March 2019). She also is the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (June 2018) and two micropoetry collections. Recently, she has published two full-length poetry collections, Vampire Daughter (February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (February 2020). Linda is also a two-time Pushcart nominee. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram (@authorlindamcrate), or Twitter (@thysilverdoe). You can learn more about Linda from her July 2019 Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W. or by reading her written words in Yellow Arrow Journal’s COURAGE and FREEDOM, or in the samurai.

Julie Alden Cullinane

Julie Alden Cullinane is a poet, author, neurodivergent, and mom in Boston. Her first publication was a poem in The Boston Globe at age 8; she has been writing ever since. After raising a family and working full time for many years as a young mom, she was able to return to her graduate studies later in life and earned her master’s in 2021, during the pandemic. Under the guidance of many amazing and supportive female professors, she began submitting her work for publication. She has published poems and short stories in 20+ literary magazines since 2020. She currently works in academia full time when she is not writing. Julie’s focus of writing is often on the untold seasons and shades of a woman’s life. She loves to highlight the dichotomy of the modern pressures on women and mothers, between having a successful career and an expected perfect domestic life. Her favorite writers are Eavan Boland and Anne Enright. When she is not writing she enjoys long naps on the couch with her beloved dog. She is currently knee-deep in a midlife crisis. It takes up all her time. She will definitely be writing about it. Find Julie at julie.wildinkpages.com/poetry or on Instagram or Threads @HerLoudMind and Twitter or Blue Sky @AldenCullinane. Ghosts Only I Can See will come out in October 2024.

Shantell Hinton Hill

shantell hinton hill is the ultimate Renaissance woman. An engineer turned pastor, shantell situates her work at the intersections of social justice, public theology, and Black feminism/womanism. A native of Conway, Arkansas, shantell is married to Rev. Jeremy Hill. They recently welcomed their first child, Sophie June, to their growing family. shantell obtained a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. She also earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the National Society of Black Engineers. She is also an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Her vocational experiences include work as a process control engineer, a Bible teacher, and as Assistant University Chaplain at Vanderbilt University. At Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, shantell focuses on community engagement, faith-based coalition building, and narrative change to imagine more just communities in Arkansas. In her spare time, shantell is also a freelance writer/author and curates digital content that centers the wholeness and thriving. Black girl magic & other elixirs is now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

Isabel Cristina Legarda

Isabel Cristina Legarda was born in the Philippines and spent her early childhood there before moving to Bethesda, Maryland. She holds degrees in literature and bioethics and is currently a practicing physician in Boston, Massachusetts. She enjoys writing about women’s lived experience, cultural issues, and finding grace in a challenging world. Her work has appeared in America Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, The Dewdrop, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Ruminate, Sky Island Review, Smartish Pace, Qu, West Trestle Review, and others. Find Isabel on Instagram and Twitter @poetintheOR or learn more about her at her website ilegarda.com. Beyond the Galleons is now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

Cassie Premo Steele

Cassie Premo Steele, PhD, is an award-winning ecofeminist author of 16 books and audio programs ranging from novels to poetry and nonfiction and scholarship. Her novel, The ReSisters, published by a small, independent press in Maine, was a #1 bestseller on Amazon in the category of books for young people combating prejudice and racism. We Heal from Memory, her scholarly work published by Palgrave, advanced ideas about the power of poetry to heal individual and collective trauma 20 years before these ideas were introduced into the mainstream. Her nonfiction book, Earth Joy Writing, published by Ashland Creek Publishing in Oregon, continues to sell well seven years after publication and is available for sale at Congaree National Park, where she leads seasonal forest journaling workshops. Her poetry has won numerous awards, including the Archibald Rutledge Prize named after the first Poet Laureate of South Carolina, where she lives with her wife. Swimming in Gilead is now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore.

Ann Quinn

Ann Quinn’s chapbook Final Deployment was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. Her poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, and others. Ann holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University, is poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Journal, and lives in Catonsville, Maryland. She teaches for Yellow Arrow and for the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and has a loyal following of students of all ages and places in their writing journey. Ann states: “There is nothing like the feeling of a poem being born into the world through your own hands, but as satisfying for me is the joy of seeing a poem come to the world through one of my student’s hands. The world comes a little more clearly into focus the more we look at it together through the lens of poetry.” Her guidebook, Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow, with contributions from her “Poetry is Life” class, is now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore. Learn more about Ann at annquinn.net.

ELLEN DOOLING REYNARD

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 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

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.

Darah Schillinger

Darah Schillinger has previously published poetry in the St. Mary’s literary journal, AVATAR, on the Spillwords Press website, in the Maryland Bards Poetry Review 2022, and in the first edition of Solstice Magazine. Her first poetry chapbook, when the daffodils die, was released in July 2022 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. Darah is currently Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street Literary Magazine and is pursuing her professional writing graduate degree at Towson University. She lives in Perry Hall, Maryland, with her dog, Moby.

Nikita Rimal Sharma

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. Nikita’s first published poem was in Yellow Arrow Journal (Re)Formation from fall 2020. Her chapbook, The most beautiful garden, was just released in April 2022. Get your paperback copy here.

Gwen Van Velsor

Gwen Van Velsor writes creative nonfiction and pseudo-inspirational prose. She started Yellow Arrow, a project that publishes and supports writers who identify as women, in 2016. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Gwen has moved many times, from sea to shining sea, now calling Bosnia her home. Her major accomplishments include walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, raising a toddler, and being OK with life exactly as it is. She is the author of the memoirs Follow That Arrow (2016) and Freedom Warrior (2020), both published by Yellow Arrow (but sold out in our bookstore!) and available on Amazon.

Candace Walsh

Candace Walsh is a PhD candidate in creative writing at Ohio University. She holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. Recent/forthcoming publication credits include for poetry, Sinister Wisdom, Vagabond City Lit, and HAD; for fiction, The Greensboro Review, Passengers Journal, and Leon Literary Review; and for creative nonfiction, March Danceness, New Limestone Review, and Pigeon Pages. Her craft essays and book reviews have appeared in Brevity, descant, New Mexico Magazine, and Fiction Writers Review. She coedits Quarter After Eight literary journal. Find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @candacewalsh. Iridescent Pigeons will come out in July 2024.

ROZ WEAVER

Roz Weaver is a Liverpool-born, spoken-word performer and internationally published poet currently floating around West Yorkshire, England. She works as a social worker and therapist whilst studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Teeside University. Roz has been published in a number of journals, zines, and anthologies, including Snapdragon Journal, Token Magazine, and past issues of Yellow Arrow Journal. Her work was most recently on exhibit with Awakenings, a Chicago-based arts collective, as well as the London Design Festival. She has also performed at the Leeds International Festival and the renowned Edinburgh Fringe. You can learn more about Roz by reading her written words in Yellow Arrow Journal’s COURAGE, DOUBT, and FREEDOM, or in Smoke the Peace Pipe. Roz also taught a sold-out class for Yellow Arrow called “Poetry as Therapy.”

Ann Weil

Ann Weil writes at her home on the corner of Stratford and Avon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and on a deck boat at Snipe’s Point Sandbar off Key West, Florida. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in more than 45 journals and anthologies including Crab Creek Review, Bacopa Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Shooter Literary Magazine, Eastern Iowa Review, and DMQ Review. Ann earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and is a former special education teacher and professor of education. Read more of Ann’s poetry at annweilpoetry.com and connect with Ann on Instagram @annweilpoetry. Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman was released April 2023—paperback and electronic copies are now available in the Yellow Arrow bookstore and through most distributors.