Welcome to the Yellow Arrow Publishing online series, Yellow Arrow Vignette, in its third season. Submissions are open for this year’s Vignette from April 1 to 30 and will be shared in August, ending with the reading in the fall.
This year, submissions for Vignette will align with Yellow Arrow’s 2024 yearly value:
AMPLIFY
: from Old French amplifier (15c.), from Latin amplificare “to enlarge,” from amplus “large”
: to expand (something, such as a statement) by the use of detail or illustration, or by closer analysis
: to make larger or greater (as in amount, importance, or intensity)
(Please note that this issue of Vignette does not ask submitters to send in pieces on the theme of AMPLIFY; rather, staff at Yellow Arrow are using the idea in house as reminder to continue to share and amplify women-identifying voices.)
When we think of the word amplify, most of us think of the way the word has been used since around the 1910s, specifically in reference to sound. However, prior to the popularization of radio technology in that decade, the word was used more generally to mean increasing in size, amount, importance, or intensity. We want that to be at the heart of how we apply this year’s value to Vignette: we’re here making it bigger. We’re here to showcase our authors to a bigger audience, to increase the conversations around our published creative works and their themes, and to increase the understanding that our audience has about these works, their writers, and the issues that matter most to them.
With Vignette AMPLIFY, we want to return to some of the earliest goals of Yellow Arrow: sharing and amplifying the creative work of voices and themes that aren’t heard loudly enough. This summer’s Vignette series is dedicated to emphasizing those women who aren’t often heard enough, and the stories, essays, poems, themes, and topics that are too often missed. And as part of the return to our roots: we want to hear from writers who live in or are otherwise connected to our home base of Baltimore.
Baltimore is a big, diverse, beautiful city, and we want to see its diversity represented in Vignette AMPLIFY. From Highlandtown (our starting point!) to Hampden, Pigtown to the Black Arts District, we want our readers to experience the spectrum of voices that Charm City offers. If you currently live, grew up in, or recently lived in the Baltimore area and are a creative who identifies as a woman, read the guidelines below carefully before submitting.
The Vignette AMPLIFY Submissions form is now live, and will remain open until April 30.
Now in its third summer, Yellow Arrow is delighted to continue its online creative nonfiction and poetry series, Yellow Arrow Vignette. We began Vignette to further expand our mission of creating a space for writers who identify as women, giving them room to have their voices heard and to ripple out in waves of empathy and resilience. We landed on “vignette” because literary vignettes are known to be pieces of writing that depict brief but highly detailed moments in time. Through Yellow Arrow Vignette, we share vibrant and poignant glimpses into our writers’ lives; when viewed as a collective, we hope these stories tell an expansive and inclusive narrative.
We’ve been making some exciting, behind-the-scenes updates to Vignette this year! One such change is that Vignette AMPLIFY will be curated and created by Vignette managing editor Dr. Tonee Mae Moll and Vignette assistant Isabelle Anderson. Tonee Mae (she/they) is joining the team this spring and summer from Baltimore, the place where our story started and the focus of AMPLIFY. She holds a PhD in English from Morgan State University and an MFA in creative writing and publishing art from University of Baltimore. Tonee Mae has worked for a number of literary organizations and publications throughout the region, including Mason Jar Press, Washington Writers Publishing House, The Sable Quill, Welter Literary Journal, CityLit Project, and more. She is the author of two books, Out of Step: a Memoir (Mad Creek Books, 2018) and You Cannot Save Here (Washington Writer’s Publishing House, 2022), and the former cohost of the literary podcast Lit!Pop!Bang!
Tonee Mae Moll
Isabelle Anderson
Isabelle (she/her) is a poet and fiction writer, also from Baltimore. She recently graduated with a BA in English from Washington College where she was a finalist for the Sophie Kerr Prize and the recipient of The Pfister Poetry Prize through the Academy of American Poets. When she is not reading or writing, she can be found on a nature walk, checking the trees for good spots to hide golf pencils à la Mary Oliver.
Submission Guidelines
Accepted submissions include creative nonfiction, poetry (including spoken-word poetry), and (this year only) ‘cover art’ by writers/artists who identify as women. Tonee Mae wanted to add, “Language and the way we use it changes quickly, and we know it’s imperfect. The phrasing ‘identify as women’ can mean a lot of different things, depending on who is reading it. I want to be clear: this is meant to include both trans and cisgender women, of course, but also any nonbinary, gender nonconforming, or genderqueer folks for whom ‘woman’ is a term with which they also align themselves.”
We’re looking foremost for women-identifying creatives from the Baltimore region or have a connection to Charm City. This means women-identifying writers/authors who currently live, grew up in, or recently lived in the Baltimore area.
We want Vignette to champion, explore, and amplify the diverse, unique voices that make Baltimore what it is today. Rather than asking submitters to think about a theme, this issue of Vignette welcomes a variety of subjects and issues focused on any and all aspects of life (the submission does not need to be about Baltimore to be included).
Creative nonfiction (1 submission per author) must be between 100 and 1,000 words. Poetry (up to 3 poems per author, grouped into a single document) must be less than 30 lines. Given that Baltimore has such a large spoken-word community, we also welcome spoken-word submissions; at this time, we cannot accept audio or video and ask spoken-word creatives to submit their work as text and include ‘spoken word’ at top. The goal is to include spoken word either as audio or video upon release.
‘Cover art’ (1 submission per artist) can be a painting, drawing, print, photo, graphic design, comic, or anything else that can be dreamed up by artists identifying as women, as related to the theme. Please note that the artwork will be displayed online with the issue.
Authors/artists should only submit one type of submission per issue; no agents.
Submissions do not need to be in English but must include an English translation.
No previously published work will be accepted at this time—this includes all printed and online material; simultaneous submissions are okay, but please let us know if a submission is published elsewhere in the interim by sending an email to submissions@yellowarrowpublishing.com.
There is NO FEE for submitting to Vignette. If selected for AMPLIFY, you will be published online by Yellow Arrow Vignette and will receive $10.00USD. Note that payments are through PayPal; while we try to accommodate those that do not have a PayPal account, this is not always possible, especially for people outside of the U.S. Thank you for understanding.
Thank you for choosing to tell your story to the Yellow Arrow community.
Are you ready to submit?
Submissions to Vignette are open from April 1 to 30 and will be accepted via the Vignette AMPLIFY Submissions form, available now.
Information collected in the form will include:
Your full name (and name you would want Yellow Arrow to use), age, nationality, current city/state/country of residence, and Baltimore area where you live or lived (required)
Your pronouns (optional)
Our writers and readers come from all walks of life and so do we. We are taking steps across our portfolio to increase representation and give greater visibility to the voices of underrepresented women-identifying storytellers. If you are comfortable doing so, please share with us which underrepresented communities you identify with that may make you uniquely positioned to connect with a particular group of readers (optional)
Where you heard about us (optional)
Note that submissions are anonymously reviewed in-house; the identifying information you provide in the submission form is used only to better understand the composition of our audience. You’ll be asked to upload a document within the form; use minimal document styling and do not include identifying information on your piece.
Submission Terms
By sending your submission you agree to the following statements:
You are a writer/artist who identifies as a woman.
You currently live or lived in the Baltimore area.
You have completely read and submitted within the guidelines.
All who submit within the guidelines, whether accepted to the 2024 summer series or not, will receive an email after submissions have closed—please do not email us to inquire about a submission. Please do not be discouraged if your submission is not accepted or you miss the deadline—there will be more opportunities available to you in the future.
We are grateful that you would like to share your story with us and our readers. To send us your submission, use the Vignette AMPLIFY Submissions form, available now.
Any questions? Email submissions@yellowarrowpublishing.com.