Yellow Arrow Publishing Blog

Kapua Iao 4/1/22 Kapua Iao 4/1/22

Meet the 2022 Yellow Arrow Publishing Writers-in-Residence

Yellow Arrow Publishing is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and loves supporting the array of diverse neighborhoods within the incredible city. And through our 2022 Writers-in-Residence program, the four chosen residents will be weaving the influence of their Baltimore experiences with their words. We encourage our Writers-in-Residence to take inspiration from the Baltimore community by writing in spaces representative of their neighborhood, and we hope that Charm City’s influence is present in their writing. Starting today and continuing through May, our residents will write, collaborate, and grow. Yellow Arrow commits to motivating, supporting, and amplifying their voices.

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. We are so proud of everyone within the Yellow Arrow community. Without further ado, let’s meet the 2022 Yellow Arrow Writers-in-Residence!

Arao Ameny is a Maryland-based poet and writer from Lira, Lango, Northern Uganda. She is a multigenre writer with a focus on poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She is currently a biography writer and editor at the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine. She earned her MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Baltimore in 2019. She also earned an MA in Journalism from Indiana University and a BA in Political Science with minors in International Relations and Communications from the University of Indianapolis. She is a former fiction editor and copyeditor at Welter, a literary journal at the University of Baltimore. Her first published poem, “Home is a Woman,” won The Southern Review’s 2020 James Olney Award. In 2021, she was a finalist for the United Kingdom-based Brunel International African Poetry Prize, a nominee for the Best New Poets anthology (USA), and a winner of a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship.

Arao is the recipient of the 2022 Mayor’s Individual Artist Award from the Creative Baltimore Fund, a grant from Mayor Brandon Scott, the City of Baltimore, and The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA). She is also a recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Open Door Career Advancement Grant for women writers of color. The workshops she has attended include Tin House and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her favorite writer is Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright, and poet Dambudzo Marechera. Previously, she worked in communications at New York City government and as a writer and social media editor at Africa Renewal magazine at the United Nations in New York City.

Follow Arao on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @araoameny.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During my residency, I’d like to revise a poetry manuscript and generate new poems. I would also like to revise a manuscript of 11 fiction short stories and generate a draft for a new story.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

As a storyteller in Baltimore, I’ve immersed myself in the work of writers with links or connections to this city. I’ve delved into the work of writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zora Neale Hurston, Edgar Allan Poe, Scott Fitzgerald, Frederick Douglass, and many more. As a person who has always found me in transition, migrating, moving, settling, resettling, and ultimately reinventing the self, I look to the writers of each place I go—in this case, Baltimore—as an anchor and a compass for my own writing journey.

Amy L. Bernstein writes for the page, the stage, and forms in between. Her novels include The Potrero Complex, The Nighthawkers, and Fran, The Second Time Around. Amy’s poetry leans heavily on freeform prose poems that address psychological and political states of mind. Amy is an award-winning journalist, playwright, and certified nonfiction book coach.

Follow Amy on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn @amylberstein, and Facebook @AmyLBernsteinAuthor. Find her website at amywrites.live.

What will you be working on during your residency?

I intend to hold twice-monthly workshops with emerging and experienced female-identifying poets and writers aged 16 and up from across the city. We will focus on a joint project, namely, using our creative imaginations to reinvent Baltimore a millennium from now. Writers may use poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, or hybrid forms of literary expression to envision a future city that celebrates their possible descendants. We will write separately and together. This project will hopefully culminate in an anthology that may eventually be published.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

Baltimore City has had a big impact on the settings and stories included in much of my fiction and poetry. I’ve written several poems that seek to explore and refract aspects of systemic racism through my sensibility as a white female artist. To that end, I’ve researched specific landmarks, including cemeteries and parks, as well as specific streets in Baltimore, where enslaved people were held or marched down to the docks. Walking through actual landscapes is a huge trigger for the literary imagination. In my novels, Baltimore serves as a backdrop for a variety of plots, ranging from the realistic to the highly fanciful. For instance, in my paranormal romance novel, the Inner Harbor morphs into a shimmery gateway to an alternative reality.

Catrice Greer is a Baltimore-based writer and a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee. In November 2020, she served as a Poet-In-Residence for Cheltenham Poetry Festival (United Kingdom). Her poetic work explores a range of topics about the human condition including mental health wellness, trauma, healing, sciences, nature, astronomy, transcendence, spirituality, identity, heritage, and cultural ancestry. She is published in local publications, online journals, and international anthologies. Currently, Catrice is coeditor of Lapidus Magazine (Lapidus International, UK), guest editor for IceFloe Press (Canada), and a guest poetry reviewer for Fevers of the Mind (U.S.).

Follow Catrice on Twitter @cgreer_greer and Instagram @Gcatrice.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During this residency, my focus is on completing my first poetry chapbook/collection for publication. This particular collection is about trauma, healing, transcendence, nature, and personhood. I explore the human condition.

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

My stories are tethered to experiences as a lifelong resident of Baltimore through my eyes, personal history, cultural and socioeconomic overlaps, and cacophony of life experiences. Though some of the narratives are personal, some are observational, and others, are universal. A sense of place acts as a foundational marker at times, and other times as a pivot or contrast.

Matilda Young is a poet with an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. She has been published in several journals, including Anatolios Magazine, Angel City Review, and Entropy Magazine’s Blackcackle. She enjoys Edgar Allan Poe jokes, not being in her apartment, sharing viral birding videos, and being obnoxious about the benefits of stovetop popcorn.

Follow Matilda on Instagram @matildayoung28.

What will you be working on during your residency?

During my residency, I will be focused on how I can share the practice and joy of poetry with my community—virtually and in person. In addition to leading a virtual daily writing practice in April, I will also be finding ways to connect with people in my neighborhood around poetry. During this time, I’ll also be working on finishing my manuscript of poems. And I’ll be putting together a chapbook around the idea of “women and other monsters.”

How has living in Baltimore shaped who you are as a storyteller?

Although I’m a relative newcomer to Baltimore, I feel like living here has infused a lot of my writing. I love the streets I’ve gotten to wander down, the people I’ve gotten to meet, the hawk sightings in Druid Hill Park, and the seagulls that hang out next to my grocery store. I also am deeply inspired by the amazing writers, creators, artists, and advocates in this city. There is so much creativity and community to be found here.

We encourage you to follow along with them on their creative journeys over the next two months. Our hope is that you will be as inspired by the arts as they are, as well as the diverse community we enjoy.

Happy National Poetry Month!

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

You can support us as we 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 3/1/22 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.

*****

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.

*****

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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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 11/23/21 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.

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, 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 11/2/21 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.

Schillinger, Darah.jpeg — **Darah Schillinger**

*when the daffodils die*

coming July 2022

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.

Kapua Iao 10/12/21 Kapua Iao 10/12/21

Listen by Ute Carson: Exchanging Stories

Carson Listen cover_back, spine, front.jpg

Yellow Arrow Publishing announces the release of our latest chapbook, Listen, by Ute Carson. Since its establishment in 2016, Yellow Arrow has devoted its efforts to advocate for all women writers through inclusion in the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal as well as single-author publications, and by providing strong author support, writing workshops, and volunteering opportunities. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting Ute in all her writing and publishing endeavors.

Listen spans the life cycle: birth, parenting (and grandparenting), aging, and dying. Images of nature and our connections to it abound throughout because nature is our habitat. The cover further invokes this symbiotic relationship. The poems within Listen run a full gamut of human emotions—wonder, doubt, pleasure, regret, love, loss, enchantment, and more, all woven into the fabric of lived experience and of experience imagined.

Ute Carson, a German-born writer from youth and an MA graduate in comparative literature from the University of Rochester, published her first prose piece in 1977. Ute has since 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 Award.

Paperback and PDF versions of Listen 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 Listen wherever you purchase your books including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. To learn more about Ute and Listen, check out our recent interview with her.

You can find Ute at utecarson.com or on Facebook, and connect with Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram, to share some love for this chapbook.

***

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. To learn about publishing, volunteering, or donating, visit yellowarrowpublishing.com. If interested in writing a review of Listen or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com for more information.

Kapua Iao 9/28/21 Kapua Iao 9/28/21

Celebrating EMERGE: Coming Into View and Pandemic Stories

By Brenna Ebner

For this year’s Yellow Arrow Publishing value, board/staff picked EMERGE. It was a decision made to celebrate a new year after we all faced such uncertainty and turmoil throughout all of 2020. We felt the start of 2021 was especially important in this way and were grateful to be able to turn over a new leaf and welcome new times filled with opportunity and optimism. As we have progressed through the year, we have progressed as individuals and as a community. EMERGE spotlights the growth and change we have made be it from this past year or before.

With this yearly value, we chose to call upon Yellow Arrow staff and authors to spotlight their growth and change in our EMERGE zines. EMERGE: Pandemic Stories focuses on the ways in which our staff and authors have dealt with the uncertainty and fear from Covid-19 and the ways they have prospered from overcoming this daunting global challenge. Their experiences are ones many of us can relate to and ones that can open our eyes to the ways Covid-19 has impacted each of us differently as well. EMERGE: Coming Into View similarly focuses on change and growth many of us have had in facing the pandemic and racial unrest while also focusing on themes outside of this year. The stories included take place at many different times and touch on family, self-empowerment, and racial identity as well.

Both zines are now available through Yellow Arrow’s bookstore as a PDF (for a donation). And on our YouTube channel, we just released prerecorded videos of several EMERGE authors reading their incredible pieces. Please show your love and support for our authors.

To celebrate the release of both EMERGE zines, we are sharing Aressa V. Williams’ piece “Good Company” from EMERGE: Pandemic Stories. Aressa shares her experience in turning her time in quarantine into something productive and rejuvenating for herself. She delves into her passion of creative writing as a tool to help in her self-reflection and a way to find solace within herself. Her newfound practices of mindfulness, boundaries, and healing speak to the ways in which we are able to transform even when stuck at home. Aressa’s transformation during quarantine is inspiring and uplifting as it gives hope to each of us to be able to do the same kind of EMERGING even in the face of great setbacks and loss. EMERGE celebrates not only these recent transformations but many others as well. With our zines, we hope to encourage each of us to continue growing, changing, and EMERGING.

“Good Company” by Aressa V. Williams

Solitude during the pandemic gave me time for self-examination, a soul check. Like so many, I took freedom for granted. Before Covid, my retirement days were busy. Tutoring, shoe shopping, dining with friends, attending matinees, coming and going as I pleased. But since I love my peaceful, safe abode, I did not mind the national time-out at home. I created a rhythm and flow to make the best of my seclusion. In fact, the quarantine was an unexpected chance for reflection, meditation, and creative writing.

I thought about foolish mistakes made in the past. Dropping by coworkers’ homes without calling or being invited. Complaining to my supervisor’s boss without first talking to my supervisor. Hurting a close friend’s feelings. “What? Pregnant again!” Too many unfiltered comments, missteps, wrongdoing. Why didn’t I know better? I imagined going back in time to apologize to the victims of my venom. Scene by scene, I revisited people who were disrespected, offended. One by one, I asked for forgiveness. Visualizing warm hugs in sunlight, I hoped they felt my sincerity.

Daily meditations were a priority for frontline workers, our political leaders, Covid patients, and me. In addition to prayers, I experimented with “distant healing,”—sending energy and well-wishing to those in need far away. I managed to keep my gratitude journal up to date while evening news reported pandemic deaths, racial injustice, and political discord. When bad news and pessimistic friends overwhelmed me, I fasted from negativity. I did not answer the phone, nor check text or email messages, nor listen to the news. Instead, I read inspirational articles, listened to love songs, watched black-and-white movies, walked wearing my mask, and engaged in positive self-talk. The personal time-outs were rejuvenating.

And home was my writing retreat. I took advantage of several creative writing opportunities and several heartaches. Between drafting, revising, and editing four poems and one essay, I lost eight people. Three family members and a close friend died of fatal diseases; four classmates died of Covid. I was forced to reconsider thoughts about death. Old sayings like “we are only visitors here” and “tomorrow is not promised to you” did not comfort me. Consequently, journal writing became my grief therapy. Composing poems, obituaries, and letters to honor the lives of loved ones eased sadness. Family and friends (and I) were grateful.

All in all, my creative retreat proved fruitful as all writing submissions were published. More importantly, months of reflection, meditation, and journaling introduced me to a new role. A recluse with a purpose. Aloneness is good company.

Brenna Ebner is Yellow Arrow’s CNF Managing Editor. She previously interned with Mason Jar Press and was Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street volume 69 at Towson University. She also does freelance editing on the side and is slowly making her way through a CNF reading list.

Aressa V. Williams, a retired Washington, D.C. public school teacher and a retired assistant professor of English at Anne Arundel Community College, is also a teacher consultant, creative writing presenter, and poet. She is an active member of Pen in Hand, Poetry X Hunger, and Poetry Nation. Equally important, she accepted the new role as a Literary Leader for the Prince Georges County Arts and Humanities Council. In the sixth grade, the aspiring message-maker wrote her first book of poems to earn a Girl Scout badge for Creative Writing. Today, Aressa has three self-published books, Soft Shadows, The Penny Finder, and most recent Pancakes & Chocolate Milk. Her inspiring poems strike universal notes about family, friends, resilience, and hope. Aressa believes that poems are word snapshots of our experiences. Moreover, she defines poetry as word music. The word-weaver enjoys walking at School House Pond, journaling, and interpreting dreams. Other interests are reading short stories, posing poll questions, and sky-watching. A good day for Aressa includes morning meditation, afternoon tea, and if possible, a nap. The poetess is the proud mother of Aaron Coley and grateful grandmother of Aressa Coley.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

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

Announcing EMERGE: Coming Into View and Pandemic Views

By Brenna Ebner

Both zines will be available through Yellow Arrow’s bookstore as a PDF (for a donation) on September 28. And on the same day on our YouTube channel, we will release videos of several EMERGE authors reading their incredible pieces. Please show your love and support for our authors. More information can be found on our events calendar.

As a sneak peek, we would like to share Nichola Ruddell’s piece “Emerge” from EMERGE: Coming Into View not only for the fitting title but because it perfectly encapsulates everything we have felt as a whole going through the uncertainty of the pandemic and in finding the courage to push on. Nichola emphasizes the importance of poetry as a way to cope, understand, and process the hardships we have faced during 2020 and the fear of what is to come next in 2021. But with the powerful tool of writing and a newfound sense of bravery, Nichola inspires us to follow in her lead and focus on the strengths we have gained through this experience and from our passions. EMERGE celebrates not only these recent transformations but many others as well. With our zines, we hope to encourage continued growth, change, and EMERGING.

“Emerge” by Nichola Ruddell

As I emerge from this year, I feel a certain hesitancy to move forward. The transition back to a life we once knew after a year punctuated by fear and loneliness, a year of panic and anxiety will be slow and fraught with hard decisions. Our round and ripe world full of possibilities is also a world deeply fractured, chaotic, and messy. The pandemic illuminated the world’s shadows and deep inequalities and injustices were brought to light. Many of us struggled to find a way to contribute, connect, and reconcile these inequities. Collectively, we confronted this pandemic yet each person has had a unique and important experience.

For most it was incredibly challenging. I found the ebbs and flows of life seemed to be quicker, louder, and sharper. There were flurries of fear and then periods of stagnation.

As a parent with school-aged children, my primary focus has been our children’s mental health and their safety. During the height of the pandemic, I often felt like I was out at sea without an anchor. The children had questions that my husband and I could not answer. They wanted to know when this would end and life felt fragile. Their innocence required us to stay strong, confident, and hopeful.

During this time, I wrote regularly using immediate and urgent poetry to integrate any experience that felt overwhelming, beautiful, or mundane. My father and I decided we would try and write a poem each day to each other over text message. It helped me stay connected and inspired me to write without constraint. “For me, poetry is a beautiful stone revealing the unearthed, holding the weight, and shining a light to experience.” As we enter the month of June, British Columbia is beginning to open up. This poem “Don’t Choose” draws on the mixed feelings that have arisen during this time:

We fly through this aching world

in moments of fire and stillness

We revel in magnificence

and then shelter in minutia

Fire

Stillness

Magnificence

Minutia

In this aching world

Don’t choose

This summer will be very different from last, and I know there will be residual fears and unknowns. I am worried that I have lost the ability to be with others and not fear getting sick. I worry that my children fear the same. Yet I also know that with time there is a settling of self and many opportunities to pause, reflect, and integrate this past year with myself and others. We know how to keep safe in our surroundings, school, and work, and we continue to learn how to live in this new way.

Our family continues to grow stronger as we navigate this time together, and I have witnessed such kindness and connection between friends and our community.

Poetry has carried me through the roughest of days and continues to strengthen my ability to reveal my truth and create meaning in our current world.

I’m not certain what the next few months will reveal, but I know that even as I continue to wrestle with hesitancy, fear, and uncertainty, I will push forward into this next phase with a renewed strength and deep gratitude.

Brenna Ebner is Yellow Arrow’s CNF Managing Editor and project lead for EMERGE. She previously interned with Mason Jar Press and was Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street volume 69 at Towson University. She also does freelance editing on the side and is slowly making her way through a CNF reading list.

Nichola Ruddell was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and raised on Salt Spring Island. She attended university at the University of Victoria, receiving a degree in Child and Youth Care. She is also a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist. She enjoys writing poetry and is previously published in the online magazine Literary Mama. Her poem “Movement in the Cinnabar Valley” was published in Yellow Arrow Journal, Home Vol. V, No. 2, and she recently became an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. After living in many places with her family, she has made a home in Nanaimo, British Columbia with her husband and two young children.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Kapua Iao 9/1/21 Kapua Iao 9/1/21

Yellow Arrow Journal Submissions are Now Open!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to announce that submissions for our next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No. 2 (fall 2021) is open September 1–30 addressing the topic of “belonging-ness,” exploring what it means to belong or un-belong, our nearness or distance (intimacy or alienation) from others and ourselves.

This issue’s theme will be:

Anfractuous:

full of windings and intricate turnings

things that twist and turn but do not break

How has your “belonging-ness” been shaped by your own personal life journey? Have you taken any sharp unpredictable turns, or has it been a slower accumulation or a shedding?

Is it necessary to “belong” to be happy? How has your sense of who you are been a process of “un-belonging”?

How have your circumstances (the land you live in or don’t live in/your family history) or your conscious choices (your chosen family/career/passions) tempered or shaped your understanding of your own belonging?

Yellow Arrow Journal is looking for creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art submissions by writers/artists that identify as women, on the theme of Anfractuous. Submissions can be in any language as long as an English translation accompanies it. 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 November 2021.

We would also like to welcome this issue’s guest editor: Keshni Naicker Washington. Keshni considers her creative endeavors a means of lighting signal fires for others. Born and raised in an apartheid segregated neighborhood in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, she now also calls Washington, D.C. home. And after nine years here has finally gotten used to Orion being the right way up in the night sky. Her stories are influenced by her evolving definition of home and the tides of political and social change that move us all. She is an alumnus of VONA and TIN HOUSE writing workshops. Connect with her keshniwashington.com and on Instagram @knwauthor. You can also learn more about Keshni through her Vol. V, No. 3 (Re)Formation piece “Alien” and her Yellow Arrow Journal .W.o.W. #20.

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 are 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, joining our virtual poetry workshop, volunteering, and/or donating today. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about future publishing and workshop opportunities. Publications are available at our bookstore and through most distributors.

*****

Kapua Iao 7/13/21 Kapua Iao 7/13/21

St. Paul Street Provocations by Patti Ross: Advocacy and Social Justice

Yellow Arrow Publishing announces the release of our latest chapbook, St. Paul Street Provocations, by Patti Ross. Since its establishment in 2016, Yellow Arrow has devoted its efforts to advocate for all women writers through inclusion in the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal as well as single-author publications, and by providing strong author support, writing workshops, and volunteering opportunities. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting Patti in all her writing and publishing endeavors.

St. Paul Street Provocations is a compelling look at current social issues, such as homelessness, that remain sidelined and ignored by those in power. It largely explores experiences and exchanges Patti had while living in Baltimore, Maryland from 2010 to 2013, just one block south of North Avenue on St. Paul Street. She found herself in a neighborhood slighted by its own city. Patti listened, wrote, and became an advocate. The nine poems intertwined with Patti’s stunning artwork work in tandem to give a voice to what Patti herself witnessed over the past decade.

Patti 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 rural American newspapers. Retiring from a career in technology, Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the spoken-word artist little pi. Her poems are published in the Pen In Hand Journal, PoetryXHunger website, and Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue, among others.

Paperback and PDF versions of St. Paul Street Provocations are now available from the Yellow Arrow bookstore! Those who ordered a paperback before release will receive their free PDF (with colored interior images!) shortly. 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 St. Paul Street Provocations wherever you purchase your books including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. To learn more about Patti and St. Paul Street Provocations, check out our recent interview with her. Keep a lookout for info on Patti’s book launch!

You can find Patti at littlepisuniverse.com or on Facebook and Instagram, and connect with Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram, to share some love for this chapbook.

*****

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. To learn about publishing, volunteering, or donating, visit yellowarrowpublishing.com. If interested in writing a review of St. Paul Street Provocations or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com for more information.

Kapua Iao 5/20/21 Kapua Iao 5/20/21

Awaken and Reflect: Yellow Arrow Journal (Vol. VI, No. 1) RENASCENCE

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

When we first announced the theme of our just released Yellow Arrow Journal issue, Vol. VI, No. 1 (spring 2021), on RENASCENCE, we were eager to read through submissions and explore the idea of cultural resurrection through the eyes of diverse authors/artists that identify as women. And we received many thoughtful, wonderful pieces that explored the idea of a personal/cultural renaissance, reviving something that was once dormant. We thank everyone who took the time to send us their experiences and wish we could have published them all. That said, the chosen pieces and contributors resonated with Taína (our guest editor), the Yellow Arrow team, and each other in a way we did not expect. Alone, each piece explores a poignant moment in life. A reflection on a moment or even a lifetime of moments.

Together, as a complete issue, the pieces delve into personal and collective cultural identity and how we might view (and could view) moments or reflections we didn’t think to contemplate. As Taína states:

Some pieces are nostalgic, bittersweet gifts from the depths of our memories that we cling to, while others are terror-filled nightmares we cannot awaken from fast enough, and still others are calls to action that will not be ignored. Each included story is a petroglyph on a cave wall, a flag planted in paper and ink. Each author is an explorer of their own culture, not discovering or conquering—for the stories of our ancestors have always been there waiting—but acting as pioneers of the past, revisiting and reclaiming the deep-rooted whispers and reflecting them into the future.

Perfect-bound 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). 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.

If you preordered your paperback copy before today, you will receive your free PDF shortly. Thank you for following our prerelease Renascence LIVE! events and for supporting our contributors. And don’t forget to join us June 4 at 7:00 pm EST for Renascence: A Reading, featuring authors of the issue and hosted by Taína. Details and how to connect to the reading can be found here.

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

*****

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

Kapua Iao 5/11/21 Kapua Iao 5/11/21

Nature Springs From Her: Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. VI, No. 1 RENASCENCE

It’s official! The cover of our Yellow Arrow Journal issue on RENASCENCE (Vol. VI, No. 1, Spring 2021) is here and PRESALE has commenced! “Nature Springs From Her” by Kalichi Lamar, pyrography on a wood panel, was inspired by the ceiba tree, the national tree of Borikén (Puerto Rico). It is also the sacred tree of her people, the indigenous Taínos. This tree was used to build canoes and is believed to have a direct connection to the spirit world and secrets of Atabey (mother earth). Rather than say more here, we’ll let Kalichi, Taína, and some of our authors explore the significance of “Nature Springs From Her” and RENASCENCE through a series of Facebook Live events starting tomorrow with Kalichi. Renascence LIVE! is a celebration of the hard work put into this journal issue by Taína, the Yellow Arrow team, and the authors/artist. It is an opportunity for the contributors and Taína to speak for themselves. To explain why renascence and cultural resurrection resonated with them.

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook to watch and participate in Renascence LIVE! And purchase a copy of RENASCENCE before May 20 to get a free PDF on release day! Click here to learn more.

Let’s let Taína explain more about the importance of renascence and this journal issue to her.

By Taína

This issue of the Yellow Arrow Journal was born in an email where an idea was shared that was just too big for a blog post. That idea was writing about cultural resurrection.

When Yellow Arrow Publishing invited me to be guest editor of this issue, I leaped at the chance. I was thrilled not just to take up space as a Taíno woman, but for the chance to amplify the voices of other marginalized writers and to share with them the power to declare their existences in paper and ink.

It’s no secret that I am a disciple of paper and ink. Of all of the weapons that could be proffered, these are the ones I will always choose. 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.

It calls us to an awakening, not just of things that were dormant, but systemically silenced. This Yellow Arrow Journal issue on RENASCENCE is an invitation to journey through each other’s cultural renascence in the various manifestations awakening can take. Some pieces are nostalgic, bittersweet gifts from the depths of our memories that we cling to, while others are terror-filled nightmares we cannot awaken from fast enough, and still others are calls to action that will not be ignored. Each included story is a petroglyph on a cave wall, a flag planted in paper and ink. Each author is an explorer of their own culture, not discovering or conquering—for the stories of our ancestors have always been there waiting—but acting as pioneers of the past, revisiting and reclaiming the deep-rooted whispers and reflecting them into the future.

That this issue was almost too easy to put together, is a testament to the Yellow Arrow team, and to the authors and artists who dared to submit to us. Even the challenges we’ve faced along the way have manifested themselves into crucial learning experiences. For this, I am deeply grateful to everyone at Yellow Arrow, but especially to our Editor-in-Chief Kapua Iao, for making this experience one of profound growth and meaning.

I’d also like to invite you all to a marvel at the cover of this issue and to watch Renascence LIVE!, where we’ll find out all about who our authors/artists are and how they connected to the theme. There’ll even be time for comments and questions from you! I can’t wait to see you there!

If that isn’t enough, we’re giving you a free PDF of RENASCENCE with every preorder before May 20! That means you can have access to the beautiful cover art, and the incredible experience of renascence, on launch day!

For we will be ancestors one day and this renascence is our legacy.

Taína is a Baltimore-based Higuaygua Taíno writer, on a mission to write the Taíno culture into existence the same way the colonizers have attempted to erase it: one word, one Taíno at a time. Her essay “Killing Ty” appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal Vol. V, No. 1 RESILIENCE and was nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize. Find out more at TainaWrites.com and connect with her on Instagram @tainaconcurls or on Facebook @TainaWrites.

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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, visit yellowarrowpublishing.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about future publishing, event, and workshop opportunities. Publications are available at our bookstore, on Amazon, and from most distributors.

Kapua Iao 4/13/21 Kapua Iao 4/13/21

No Batteries Required by Ellen Dooling Reynard: Living Life’s Non Moments

Yellow Arrow Publishing announces the release of a new chapbook, No Batteries Required, by Ellen Dooling Reynard. Since its establishment in 2016, Yellow Arrow has devoted its efforts to advocate for all women writers through inclusion in the biannual Yellow Arrow Journal as well as single-author publications, and by providing strong author support, workshops, and volunteer opportunities. We at Yellow Arrow are excited to continue our mission by supporting Ellen in all her writing and publishing endeavors.

The 28 poems included in No Batteries Required float through several themes and are divided into four sections: moments and non moments, Life’s Journey Home, Other Creatures, and Seasoned with Humor. As a whole, No Batteries Required examines the world around Ellen from the perspective of her inner world. She considers what she calls ‘moments and non moments’—those brief stops along the way to look at something as simple as a flower or to witness something as complex as the death of a loved one.

As a senior, Ellen looks back on her life, its joys and sorrows, its loves and losses, while she navigates the unknown currents of old age and ponders about the journeys of life, death, and what lies beyond. Observing the natural world, she recognizes what is to be learned about the human condition from animals, insects, and plants. In the final title poem, Ellen muses about the craft of writing with a pencil, which she describes as a simple computational device with one end for ‘enter,’ the other end for ‘delete.’

Ellen spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Jackson, Montana. Raised on myths and fairy tales, the sense of wonder has never left her. A one-time editor of Parabola Magazine, her poetry has been published by Lighten Up On Line, Current Magazine, Persimmon, Silver Blade, and The Muddy River Poetry Review. She is now retired and has relocated to Clarksville, Maryland, where she will continue to write fiction and poetry. She is currently working on a series of ekphrastic poems based on the work of her late husband, Paul Reynard (1927–2005).

Paperback and PDF versions of No Batteries Required 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 No Batteries Required wherever you purchase your books including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and smaller bookstores. Connect with Yellow Arrow Publishing on Facebook and Instagram, and Ellen on Facebook, to share some love for this chapbook. To learn more about Ellen and No Batteries Required, check out our recent interview with her. And as part of our April Poetry Series, join us for a book launch of No Batteries Required on April 30 at 6 p.m. More information about the reading, as well as the Zoom link, can be found on our Events Calendar.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. To learn about publishing, volunteering, or donating, visit yellowarrowpublishing.com. If interested in writing a review of No Batteries Required or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com for more information.

Kapua Iao 3/1/21 Kapua Iao 3/1/21

Yellow Arrow Journal Submissions are Now Open!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is excited to announce that submissions for our next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No.1 (spring 2021) are open March 1–31 addressing the topic of Cultural Resurrections: the act of bringing a culture back from extinction or near extinction.

For too long history has been written by victors, resulting in a narrative absent of the tales of colonized cultures. If by ink and paper an entire people can be erased, then by ink and paper they can be resurrected. This issue’s theme will be:

Renascence

reviving something that was once dormant

How does your culture shape your personal identity? What part of your culture has been lost, or nearly lost? How was it lost? Why?
How have cultural absences affected your life? Strengthened it? Made it more difficult? What do you wish you had learned in school about your cultural identity?
What parts of your personal identity have been awakened/reawakened by your cultural identity? How?

Share the lost stories of your culture, write your histories back into existence. EMERGE.

Yellow Arrow Journal is looking for creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art submissions by writers/artists that identify as women, on the theme of Renascence. Submissions can be in any language as long as an English translation accompanies it. 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 2021.

We would also like to welcome our first guest editor for Yellow Arrow Journal: Taína, a proud Higuayagua Taíno writer on a mission to reclaim her indigenous Taíno culture and write her people back into existence with the same tools colonizers used to erase them. Taína was one of our incredible Yellow Arrow Journal RESILIENCE writers as well as one of our 2021 Pushcart Prize nominees. Connect with her at tainawrites.com or on Instagram @tainaconcurls. You can also learn more about Taína from her recent Yellow Arrow blog post on rewriting traditions.

The journal is just one of many ways that Yellow Arrow Publishing works to support and inspire women through publication and access to the literary arts. Since its founding in 2016, Yellow Arrow has worked tirelessly to make an impact on the local and global community by hosting literary events and publishing writers that identify as women. 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 Journal, joining our virtual poetry workshop, volunteering, and/or donating today. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about future publishing and workshop opportunities. Publications are available at our bookstore, on Amazon, or from most distributors.

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

Rewriting Tradition

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

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

By Taína

Originally written November 2020, updated February 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Brenna Ebner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arao Ameny

Amy L. Bernstein

Catrice Greer

Matilda Young

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? ~

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

Renascence

reviving something that was once dormant

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