Please Tell Me: Write Here Write Now with Yellow Arrow Publishing

By Kerry Graham

Granted, I don’t know what it is. When it happened. Where.

But I know you have a story—many stories, in fact. I know the world will be made better (more whole, more hopeful) when you tell what only you can tell.

No, I don’t know who was there. Who wasn’t. How, or how much, what happened affects you. I just know that it’s a story we’re eager for you to share.

Maybe you’ve heard this before, this urging to tell your truth. Maybe you’d like to but are worried you won’t do your story justice. Maybe you don’t know where to start—or where to end.

Please don’t let that stop you from trying.

I am a seasoned writer of creative nonfiction; I write personal essays and vignettes, offering my readers glimpses of what and who matter to me. This genre shows me, time and again, that what appears to be the most unique is also often the most universal; narrating the nuances of our lives can be how we best connect to others.

I am also an instructor of creative nonfiction; I lead virtual workshops to support fellow writers—or fellow humans, folks with stories simmering within, whether or not they know how to tell those yet—in creating a narrative out of their lived experience.

I write creative nonfiction because it’s one of the most reliable ways to share what I find most precious. I teach creative nonfiction because I want as many people as possible, especially those with the least amount of experience, to have the option to do the same.

My quickest advice to anyone interested in writing creative nonfiction is to use the same level of imagination and intention to write as you would in other genres: a piece of fiction. Poetry. The fact that you’re recounting something that actually happened doesn’t change that it’s art. Your words are the color and shape of the scene unfolding on the page; you just need to know how to wield them. How to use your words to show. Evoke.

Starting in January, I will teach a monthly workshop series with Yellow Arrow called Write Here Write Now. Each session will be a new opportunity, a chance to work with a different skill, to craft creative nonfiction. We’ll discuss, practice, and have the opportunity to receive feedback on character development so that your readers will come to love or loathe the people in your story just like you do. In another session, we’ll cover setting—what it contributes to a scene and how. We’ll also travel through time, playing with flashbacks and flash forwards to figure out the most compelling way to reveal what it is that you have to say.

Write Here Write Now is designed for anyone eager to share their truth, regardless of previous writing experience. The first three sessions are on January 9, February 13, and March 12, which you can sign up for at yellowarrowpublishing.com/workshop-sign-up/whwn2024. While each session stands alone, they’ll be most valuable if you attend all three; you’ll see the cumulative impact of the skills, as well as how they can be used alongside one another to make your words even more resonant.

I don’t know your story, but I want to. And if you’ll have me, I’d be honored to help you tell it.

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Kerry Graham is a Baltimore-based writer, book coach, and former high school English teacher. Her newsletter, Real Quick, offers solidarity with, and strategies for, the writer ready to become more confident and capable in their craft. Kerry is a Creative-in-Residence at The Baltimore Banner.

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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 SPARK and sparkle this year: 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 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.

Workshop Wednesdays: Find your writing community with Yellow Arrow

By Annie Marhefka

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot about our Yellow Arrow community lately, about the women-identifying writers who seek solace in our words, whether through reading the latest issue of Yellow Arrow Journal, attending a poetry reading featuring one of our chapbook authors, or joining in our online workshops in search of a spark of inspiration. We’ve been asking you, at events, workshops, and through surveys, “What drew you to Yellow Arrow?” We get a variety of responses to this question, but there is always a common thread—the desire to explore this creative urge of yours. The desire to grow your craft, gain confidence in your work, and find inspiration. The desire to find others who also feel that inclination towards writing, and to connect with them.

When I first made the decision to refocus on my writing, I felt overwhelmed by what was out there. I found there were writing groups and communities on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, BookTok (what even was BookTok?!), and some of them had numbers in the thousands or tens of thousands of members. I was unsure of myself as a writer (and also an introvert) and I didn’t know how best to immerse myself in the literary scene. Two things really were the catalyst for the change in my comfort level as a writer, and as a member of this literary sphere. The first was finding Yellow Arrow. It felt serendipitous: a local group of women-identifying writers each on their own unique journey, collectively encouraging each other on. The second was beginning to attend writing workshops.

I found writing workshops were a place of comfort for me—a place to hear about other writers’ inspirations, a space to pause and reflect, and a setting where, eventually, I started feeling brave enough to share my own writing with others. There is nothing more fulfilling to a writer than the support of other writers, the cheering on of each other, the moments when you can see that you’ve moved someone with your words.

This is exactly the type of nurturing environment we have tried to create with our Yellow Arrow workshops. Today, we’re announcing our full 2023 spring workshop schedule. In addition to our monthly workshops, Restorative Writing with Raychelle Heath and Poetry is Life with Ann Quinn, we’ve now opened enrollment for a series of Workshop Wednesdays. Each Workshop Wednesday has a different instructor with a different workshop topic, and we’re just thrilled to offer this variety of sessions to you. We’ve also made a firm commitment to ensuring our workshops are accessible to everyone, so Workshop Wednesday sessions are all just $25 each. Check out our Workshop Schedule for full workshop listings and sign up in our online store.

Our workshops are small, intimate groups that meet online to write and share together. They are intended for writers of all stages—even if you aren’t sure you would call yourself a writer (yet!). If that is you, know that you are welcome here. Come write with us! We’d love to create with you.

If you’re interested in both purchasing Yellow Arrow Journal and attending a workshop, check out our new membership option! Yellow Arrow members receive both 2023 issues of Yellow Arrow Journal, bonus items, and 50% off a workshop! We also have the option to donate a workshop space for a writer with a financial hardship available in our bookstore. If you have a financial hardship but wish to attend a workshop, we encourage you to sign up for our no-cost workshop wait list and we’ll contact you when a no-cost space becomes available!

At Yellow Arrow, we believe every writer has a story to tell, and every story is worth telling. Maybe your story starts with a Yellow Arrow workshop.

Enrollment is now open in our online store.

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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 SPARK and sparkle this year: 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 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.

Poetry is Life: How it Happened

So far, 2022 has been a jam-packed year for Yellow Arrow Publishing. We have chosen to AWAKEN in 2022, to reopen, reintroduce, reactivate, and restructure many of our core programs, including our Writers-in-Residence program (application open February 7–25), workshops (first class at the end of February!), and publications. Ann Quinn, Yellow Arrow Journal’s poetry editor and our only workshop instructor in 2020, has played a major role throughout the first month of 2022.

Her workshop “Poetry is Life” will begin again in March and as you all know, we just released the fantastic Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow, a guidebook for both readers and writers of poetry, alike.

Find your copy of Poetry is Life in the Yellow Arrow bookstore and reserve your spot in her class today. The live reading of Poetry is Life was on February 6 and is now available on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel: youtu.be/cg7x3c_uVwo.

So, how did it all happen?

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By Ann Quinn

Our first meeting was in person. March 7, 2020, was to be the first of 12-monthly sessions—a year of poetry—in Yellow Arrow’s new house, decorated by volunteers with donated furniture and fixtures and lots of yellow paint. It still smelled a bit mildewy, but it was ours. Eight strangers gathered, with that slight prickle of mistrust—what will she ask of me, what will they think of me—but before long we were reading a poem together and parsing it and starting to break down the walls, just a little bit. Two hours later, we had shared, we had seen one another in our writing, we had eaten donuts from Hoehn’s Bakery, and we promised to come back in April.

And you know what happened next. But this class had been a dream of mine, and I was not about to let it go because of a pandemic. I called Gwen Van Velsor, Yellow Arrow’s founder, and said that I wanted to continue on Zoom. She agreed, somewhat doubtfully, I think, as long as I provided the account.

This was the class I had wanted to take, for decades. When I was 26, my mom gifted me a poetry weekend with Sandy Lyon, a poet who hosted weekend workshops in his home in Bethesda, Maryland. At that point, I had done some journaling, and I had written the occasional sonnet, but I was not alert to the magic latent in words arranged carefully and sparely on the page. And then the weekend was over, and I didn’t know how to carry this coolness on all by myself. So I returned to the rest of my messy life and was just a bit more inclined to read poems when they showed up and to wonder how the writer did that. And to take every opportunity, rare as it was, to write with others. And to return over and over to the question that Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Twenty years later—after graduate school in music, a year in an ashram, a brief stint in acupuncture school, lots of freelance work, marriage, and two kids—I interviewed a neighbor, Michael Collier, former Poet Laureate of Maryland, in order to write an article about him. In preparation for our meeting, I read one of his books. I read the poems one at a time, in waiting rooms, at the playground, in the minutes between my kids’ bedtime and mine. And the poems circled in my head and made me think and wonder and see things in new ways. And after the interview, Michael gave me a book that included an essay on how he decided to become a poet. You could decide to become a poet? Your poems could be bad at first, and then gradually improve? It seems so obvious now, but at the time it felt revelatory. I began reading voraciously and getting up early to try to write. I longed to take a class, but the nearest class was an hour’s drive, if I was lucky, down 95, 495, and Connecticut Avenue, and I couldn’t count on getting back by the end of my kids’ school day. My passion slowed to a simmer. My family came first.

Then my mom died. If you’ve experienced grief, you know how life-changing it can be. And if you’re reading this, you probably know how healing poetry can be as an outlet. Now poetry felt crucial. And my kids were older. I found a way to get to Bethesda one day a week for a Poetry 101 class with Nan Fry. I got into an advanced poetry class at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, with the marvelous Lia Purpura. I’ll never forget the feeling of walking into the undergraduate classroom at 50. How keenly I felt my age, and yet at the same time I felt 12. But how my heart sang. That semester, and the following (in which I took Intermediate Poetry with Lia—and I would happily take Beginning Poetry with her, too), were days in which I carried a light in my chest—it was like a low-grade, long-lasting feeling of being in love. And still, I would cry at the slightest remembering that my mother was gone. Meanwhile, the poetry poured forth.

Lia told me about a low-residency MFA program in Tacoma, Washington. I got in. Three years later, I graduated. I had some publishing success, including a book, Final Deployment (2018) from Finishing Line Press. But I was keenly interested in teaching, and I was looking for opportunities. I volunteered to lead a writing group at my church;  before long, the free class had sorted itself into a small but dedicated group of writers who were willing to be vulnerable and real, confirming that yes, this was what I wanted to do.

Doors don’t always open at first. Poetry, like any of the arts, has a certain self-imposed hierarchy, where sometimes it feels as if obscurity wins the prizes. This is a shame because poetry has so much to offer everyone. And coming out of an MFA program, many people wonder which path to take. I think everyone has an important story, and what my study has given me is a way to gently lead those who would write poetry down the path of craft, for that is where delight lies.

Gwen created Yellow Arrow to open more doors to writers who might not otherwise be heard. Teaching here, and helping edit the journal, I feel like I’m helping these voices find their way. This class has been a gift. From the very first session on Zoom, we’ve had students from the West Coast, the Midwest, the South, and even Canada. A cohesive group has formed, and while we welcome others into the class, there are eight regulars who have attended almost since the beginning (three of whom were there on the donut day). We felt it was time to show you what we’ve done so far, which is how Poetry is Life: Writing with Yellow Arrow happened. “Poetry is Life” is the class I wanted to take, all those years ago. And Poetry is Life is a way to share it with you.

You can find a copy of Poetry is Life in the Yellow Arrow bookstore and through most online distributors. Poetry is Life was compiled by Ann and includes contributions by Linda Gail Francis, Patrick W. Gibson, Jessica Gregg, Sara Palmer, Julia W. Prentice, Patti Ross, Nikita Rimal Sharma, and Jobie Townshend-Zellner. Cover art, “Coastal Vibrancy,” is by Claudia Cameron and the cover design is by Alexa Laharty.

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Ann Quinn is a poet, editor, teacher, mentor, mother, and classical clarinetist. Her award-winning work has been published in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Broadkill Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda and for Yellow Arrow Publishing and is the poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Journal. Ann holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family. Visit her at annquinn.net.

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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.

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.

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.

Winter Writing Workshops

Winter writing workshops:

Unblocking the Muse 1/26/19

Whether you're a new writer, an off-and-on-again writer, or an old hat, sometimes it can be hard to get the creative juices flowing. So what exactly do you do when the only word you can think to write is "the"? Led by Gwen Van Velsor and Ariele Sieling, this workshop will run through a variety of strategies for getting in the groove of writing in both fiction and creative nonfiction. We will discuss short-term strategies to use when you're staring at a blank piece of paper, and long-term strategies for when writer's block just won't go away. We will also delve into creative problem solving, for when the story itself just isn't working.Come join us and your fellow writers for a fun, interactive workshop on unblocking the muse.

Finding Your Authentic Voice 2/23/19

They always say "write what you know," but what exactly does that mean? When crafting a story, whether fiction or nonfiction, honesty and authenticity in the writing practice is crucial to adding realism and credibility to your story. This workshop will address some of the challenges of staying authentic, and discuss strategies for incorporating integrity and authenticity Join Cija (pronounced "Kia") Jefferson and Ariele Sieling as they dive into different strategies for telling the truth, writing what you know, and adding realism and complexity to your story.

Finding Healing Through Writing 3/23/19

We all have a story inside of us, and finding a way to write about it can lead to self acceptance and healing. In this workshop, we explore our feelings and experiences in a safe place through writing, laughter and community. Reshape and explore real life experiences through fiction and creative nonfiction with author Dr. Diane Pomerantz, clinical psychologist. When we share our stories with each other, it creates a ripple effect of empathy, compassion and understanding. It’s about saying, yes, we belong here, too.