.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
W.o.W. #68
Elyse Welles
What is the first book that made you cry?
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I remember my teacher reading it aloud in elementary school and sobbing away at the unending love, the unconditional gifts the tree gave year after year . . . and it was the unappreciativeness of the boy-turned-man that made me cry. I remember looking around at the classmates I had and thinking, “Why isn’t everyone else sobbing?!”
How did you first publish your writing and what was it?
My very first published work as a working writer was an essay in Aayo Magazine about finding calm amidst political turmoil, something I come back to again and again in recent months. Fun fact, when I was in the 11th grade I had my Lembas bread recipe (Elvish bread from Lord of the Rings) published in a local cookbook in Bahrain where I was living at the time!
What word do you find yourself using most often in your writing?
Warmth.
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
I am guided: just stay focused.
Elyse Welles is a multicultural author and sacred poet. An initiated priestess holding an MA with a focus in spiritual studies, she is a teacher of the lost Earth priestess arts of the Mediterranean where she hails from. She hosts the Magick Kitchen Podcast, a top 20 show in the U.S., as well as the Seeking Numina Podcast and the Cosmic Theater Mystery School Podcast. She is an author, featured in several anthologies. Her first book, Sacred Wild: An Invitation to Connect with Spirits of the Land, releases with Llewellyn in fall 2025, and her paranormal mystery novel, What the Water Remembers, releases in September 2025. Elyse is currently writing her third book, a nonfiction work diving deeper into intentional, spiritual connection with nature. It builds on the themes introduced in Sacred Wild.
She writes regularly for Witchology and Witch Way Magazine and is the Greece correspondent for Wild Hunt. She has spoken at several conferences including Hekatefest and the Ancestral Magic Summit. She runs Seeking Numina, facilitating pilgrimages at Greece’s sacred sites, and teaches earth-based spirituality. Learn more about it at seekingnumina.com or find Elyse on Instagram @seekingnumina.
Yellow Arrow published her poems “Bougainvillea Bright” in Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VII, No. 1, UpSpring and “Zeitgeist” in Yellow Arrow Vignette SPARK.