The Art of Letting Go
Yellow Arrow Publishing would like to announce the next guest editors (we’ve decided on two!) for Yellow Arrow Journal: Gwen Van Velsor and Annie Marhefka. They are both well known to our community, and we are excited to have both oversee the creation of our Vol. XI, No. 2, issue (fall 2026) during our 10-year anniversary. What better way to celebrate 10 years of Yellow Arrow Publishing than with the founder and current executive director reflecting and illuminating women creatives together!
With that in mind, we think the topic of the issue is fitting and can’t wait to see what everyone sends in. Creative practices require a certain letting go, whether it be in the act of writing or in the moment when the writing is shared with others. We don’t know where our creativity will lead, and we don’t know what will become of it. For Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. XI, No. 2, we are interested in hearing about those moments in life, in the creative process or otherwise, when you let go of the outcome.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Theme announcement: July 20
Submissions open: August 1
Submissions close: August 31
Issue release: November 10
Gwen Van Velsor loves writers and writing and finds great value in the act of creating and sharing the written word. She founded Yellow Arrow Publishing in 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland, after publishing her first book. Her work has appeared on various platforms since then, as handbound books, on websites, and on library shelves. Her fulfilling work with Yellow Arrow contributed to the publication of many other writers, of which she is immensely proud. Her current yellow arrows have led to candidacy for rostered ministry in the ELCA Lutheran church while pursuing a MDiv at United Lutheran Seminary. Gwen is from Portland, Oregon, and is proud to call Baltimore home, where she lives with her daughter and enjoys swimming, hiking, and camping.
Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland; she is the recipient of the 2024 Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize, has been featured on The Slowdown Show and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Annie is the executive director at Yellow Arrow Publishing, a Baltimore-based nonprofit empowering women-identifying writers. Annie has received support from the Maryland State Arts Council, Gullkistan Center for the Arts, Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and Tin House. She has a BA in creative writing and a MBA from Washington College and is a MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. She has authored two collections: Strangers We Know By Heart with Garden Party Collective and Baltimore, a travelogue memoir, for the Writer in Sites series by Scrawl Place. When Annie is not writing, she is usually trying to find her way back to the water. Follow Annie on Instagram @anniemarhefka and at anniemarhefka.com.
Please follow Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram for the theme announcement. Below, both Gwen and Annie explore the idea of letting go at pivotal moments of their lives. We look forward to working with Gwen and Annie over the next few months and can’t wait to hear your words.
By Gwen Van Velsor
Back in the summer of 2014, along with many other pilgrims, I walked hundreds of miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. This ancient path leads to a cathedral in Santiago de Compostela where people across many generations have journeyed for thousands of reasons. It’s true that I was very blessed to have the time and the funds to make such a trek; it is also true that this was not a vacation. I was in serious spiritual trouble and did not know where to turn. Perhaps a difficult physical challenge coupled with a willingness to let a higher power guide my steps would bring me some clarity. Each day for a couple of months, I set out early in the morning on the path, following yellow arrows painted on signposts along the way. Upon arriving in Santiago, at the foot of the cathedral, I had no clarity. I had sore feet, tired shoulders, visits by earth angels, fresh bread and cold spring water at my most famished moments, but no answers. So I kept walking. At “The End of the World,” in Finisterre, where the Camino meets the sea, I could walk no longer. There was nothing left to do but let go and hope for the damn best.
And that’s when life really got interesting. I didn’t just let go; I plunged into life. I was a girl in her 30s who had lived for someone else’s dreams her entire adulthood. In quick succession, I opened a coffee shop called Yellow Arrow Coffee in Colorado, wrote the first draft of Follow That Arrow, closed the coffee shop, moved to Baltimore, got remarried, started Yellow Arrow Publishing, and had a baby. Along the way, I had learned to allow the arrows to be my guide by letting go and trusting (with varying degrees of success) that more arrows would appear.
When I got the news in 2020 that our family would be stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina for three years, I was equal parts thrilled about the adventure ahead and crushed by the reality that I would not be able to run Yellow Arrow Publishing any longer. Learning the publishing arts and creating a writing community was such a fulfilling and important part of my life, and the thought of letting go of the work sent me into deep grief. I couldn’t understand how the arrows had led here; I must have made a wrong turn. I did not want to let my colleagues and the writers down.
Something beautiful happened along the way. The team carried on, continued the mission and the work, and the community flourished. Annie offered a holy yes to leading Yellow Arrow with her many gifts. It was in this letting go that I realized Yellow Arrow Publishing was its own collaborative of collective wisdom, gathered over the flame of the written word. All of you offered a holy yes as well, and this community has carried on and grown and offered light and love to so many.
By Annie Marhefka
In late 2017, my family experienced the sudden loss of my mother. My grieving process over the next few years was not one of letting go, though; it was one of clinging on for (my own) dear life. My mother left behind troves of journals with a plea for me to carry on her writing, to write her story for her. At that time, everything in my life was under my full control. I had built a successful career in human resources, I was in a stable marriage, I had two lovely children. I managed the household, and the schedules, and the trips. I planned everything for myself, my family, my friends—I had color-coded lists for every football tailgate menu, spreadsheets and itineraries for every group vacation, and a to-do list for every party I hosted.
But I kept thinking about my mother’s letters to me, about her insistence that I should be writing, that the ability to craft a story was my true purpose. And eventually, I decided to leave my job as a full-time HR executive and start my own consulting business so that I could devote more time to my writing. I was terrified that people would think I was foolish to leave my steady job—and in fact, many people did think that and told me so. But some people told me they thought I was brave. I didn’t feel brave, though—I felt scared. And I felt like no one around me truly understood this feeling I had that writing was what I was meant to be doing. I felt alone.
I applied for the writers-in-residence at Yellow Arrow in 2020, and honestly, I was shocked when I received the email from Gwen that I had been selected for the program. At our first meeting, Gwen told me I was the exact type of writer she had created the program for. What stood out to me in that exchange was that Gwen considered me a writer. I hadn’t published anything yet—I thought of myself as my world viewed me—as a woman/mother/wife/friend/HR professional . . . who also wrote. That conversation with Gwen made me realize that being a writer was my core identity. I felt seen.
When Gwen relocated and the board asked me to consider the role of executive director, there was nothing I wanted more than to play even a small part in helping create that feeling of belonging for other emerging writers. Learning the literary landscape and independent publishing industry was challenging and took years (and I’m still learning every day!). But at every step, I felt convicted that this was the right path for me to be on. Each writer I encountered served as a reminder, my own little yellow arrows at every turn.
In 2024, I was offered an opportunity to join an artists’ residency program in Laugarvatn, Iceland, a small town on the Golden Circle route that boasted nothing more than a hot spring, a community pool, and a gas station. It was almost an hour to the nearest grocery store or hospital, though I could find dozens of waterfalls and Icelandic ponies any direction I went. I was there without a car, without television or streaming services, without family to support with childcare; my kids had no more toys and games than they could fit into a child-sized backpack for the month.
I had been to Iceland several times before, and I had gone in search of the northern lights often, to no avail. I learned that you cannot control whether you see the northern lights. You could rent a car, pay for a seasoned tour guide, plan your trip in the perfect season, and still fail. So many factors need to align—light pollution levels, low cloud cover, dark skies, high latitudes, and perfect solar winds.
In the past year in particular, a lot has changed in my life, and most of it has changed in a way that means significant uncertainty for me. In some ways, I don’t know what my life will look like a year from now. Letting go of the control I used to have has felt like both a recklessness and an indulgence. It is a way of giving in to the universe, of throwing your hands up luxuriously and just trusting that you will somehow land where you’re supposed to. It is like that moment when all the atmospheric conditions align, and you look up and see the aurora borealis dancing for you. It is the moment when you suddenly imagine how many other human beings are looking up at that same alluring sky and viewing her through their own unique lenses. It is the moment when you know exactly how you will take an experience and craft it into art.
These are the background stories on our journeys and how those journeys have intersected through the work here at Yellow Arrow. But what does that mean for us right now, today? Where do these stories take us from here? We look forward to reading your pieces on what letting go has meant to you, trusting that these stories and poems will lead us, as a community, right where we need to be in this next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal.
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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we LUMINATE a path for women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook or Instagram, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.