10 years of Yellow Arrow
✩
10 years of Yellow Arrow ✩
help us write change into the world
Give today ⁎
Our 10-year anniversary campaign is a call to action for anyone who believes in the power of storytelling. Support for our campaign is support for women-identifying writers across Baltimore and beyond.
What we achieve together can be infinite. Limitless. Unending.
Boundless.
It began with the binding of a book.
In 2016, Yellow Arrow was founded with a dream of uplifting the voices of women-identifying writers. In the beginning, the small but mighty team hand-bound the books, starting with Yellow Arrow’s first literary collection, Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. I., which was released in July 2017. In that first edition, founder Gwen Van Velsor invited the reader to join us on a JOURNEY, the theme for the first issue.
In 2019, Yellow Arrow started producing two volumes of its journal per year, a tradition that has continued. But now the books are perfect bound—meaning they are curated, created, and designed by the Yellow Arrow team in-house and then sent off to a professional printer for production, binding, and distribution.
The team has grown in size and heart over the years, each contributing member of our staff or board embodying all that Yellow Arrow’s initial mission intended to embrace, now having championed the words of over 500 women-identifying writers. By 2026, Yellow Arrow will have published 17 issues of Yellow Arrow Journal, 17 chapbooks, 4 years of our online Vignette series spotlighting Baltimore-area writers, and several additional publications, like our popular Poetry is Life collection.
In that first issue, Gwen wrote in the introduction, “I realized that this particular pilgrimage would be incomplete unless I was willing to return home, if only in a metaphorical sense.” We thank you, Yellow Arrow community, for choosing to return home to these words and this community, again and again.
We’ve been fortunate to have financial support from incredible local and state organizations, but now, arts funding is being challenged across the nation. We don’t yet know how this will fully impact us, but we have faith that the passion and generosity of our community will guide us on the path forward. Our ten year anniversary campaign is a call to action for anyone who believes in the power of storytelling. Support for our campaign is support for women-identifying writers across Baltimore and beyond.
What we achieve together can be infinite. Limitless. Unending.
Boundless.
Why give?
Hear what our writers have to say.
“Yellow Arrow was the first journal to publish my writing. Ever. It’s difficult to express what it felt like to receive that acceptance email. Quite simply it changed my life. My piece being accepted gave me the confidence to continue to ‘dare to write,’ and I haven’t stopped believing in myself since.”
— Keshni Naicker Washington
“Women’s stories are so often flattened into tropes—the fawning girlfriend, the overwhelmed mother, the sad divorcée. Through Yellow Arrow, I’ve found a place where women’s voices are treated with the depth and nuance they deserve, where our stories can be both unique and shared, raw and true. It’s reminded me how vital it is that we tell our own stories in our own words.”
— Laura Taber
“The first time I read my poetry in front of my daughter, a delicate 11-year-old, I remember shaking as I read. My legs. My hands. My everything. In a maternal instinct moment, I looked up to check on her sitting in the audience. She was smiling, not out of politeness or obligation, but out of understanding. I realized she was truly and honestly listening not only to me but to all the women writers in that tent who had the courage to stand up and pour their words into the air. She was breathing, drinking it all in. It was in that moment that I experienced, in real time, the immeasurable impact that women’s stories can have on even the smallest of ears. My daughter sprouted some literary wings that day, and I credit Yellow Arrow for showing her how to soar.
— Jen M. Eyre
Help us further our mission by making a one-time or monthly donation to Yellow Arrow Publishing.
Through your donation, you will be supporting a passionate team dedicated to uplifting the voices and stories of women-identifying writers through publications (Yellow Arrow Journal, Yellow Arrow Vignette, and chapbooks), residencies, workshops, and events. Your donation would uplift emerging and established authors and provide them with the resources they need to publish and showcase their work. Help support our effort to bring to light underrepresented stories.
Donations are accepted via PayPal (click DONATE or send to staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or mail (P.O. Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209).
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a 501(c)(3) organization. All contributions made to us are tax-deductible.
Where will your donation go?
A donation also helps us work toward several long-term goals:
Strengthening and growing our support of women-identifying creatives in the Baltimore community and beyond
Bringing Yellow Arrow and our authors to literary and arts festivals and events
Compensating our hard-working staff
Providing community support through online and in-person events and readings
Finding new opportunities to support women-identifying authors
Donating to Yellow Arrow helps us expand our initiatives as we increase access to the literary arts for women-identifying writers in Baltimore and beyond. If you are unable to donate but want to support us, consider joining us at events, purchasing from our bookstore, or giving us a shout out on social media. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.
Donate your time by volunteering!
You can also show your support by donating your time. Yellow Arrow is looking for volunteers interested in learning more about publishing and the literary arts while supporting creatives who identify as women. You can read more about our open and general positions and apply for them here. We also offer a variety of internship opportunities to undergraduate or graduate students—find open internship positions here.
If you have any questions or want to partner with Yellow Arrow, please email info@yellowarrowpublishing.com.