Curiosity and Creativity: An Ever-Burning Fire
Yellow Arrow Publishing would like to announce the next guest editor for Yellow Arrow Journal, Heather Brown Barrett. Heather will oversee the creation of our Vol. XI, No. 1 issue (spring 2026). This next issue of Yellow Arrow Journal will explore the interplay between curiosity and creativity and how it informs discovery in the personal creative process and encourages artistry and fulfillment for women-identifying writers.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Theme announcement: January 26
Submissions open: February 1
Submissions close: February 28
Issue release: May 19
Heather Brown Barrett is an award-winning poet in southeastern Virginia. She mothers her young son and contemplates life, the universe, and everything with her writer husband. She is a Cherokee Nation citizen, the membership chair of The Poetry Society of Virginia, a member of The Muse Writers Center, and a former board member of Hampton Roads Writers. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, The Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, formidable Woman sanctuary, Black Bough Poetry, OyeDrum Magazine, and elsewhere and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her poetry is featured in the global TELEPHONE exhibition and was previously featured on the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail as part of The Poetry Society of Virginia’s Poetry on the Trail project and in the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts Everyone Has a Story exhibit. Much of her work is influenced by themes and dualities of motherhood, modes of forgiveness and grace, and the types of subjects that plague most poets, like death, grocery stores, and birds. She’s the author of Water in Every Room (Kelsay Books, 2025), a collection of poems embodying the fluctuations of emotion and form in new motherhood.
Please follow Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram for the theme announcement. Below, Heather explains how creativity and curiosity are pivotal to her life and to her artmaking. We look forward to working with Heather over the next few months and can’t wait to hear your words.
By Heather Brown Barrett
Curiosity, creativity, and imagination are kinetic, reinforcing; one fuels the flames of the others, an ever-burning fire within those of us called to the arts. I question, ponder, read, create. I seek knowledge, desiring to know what drives everyone and everything, from the micro to the macro, examining motives and mechanisms of what is natural and human-made, spiritual and theoretical. This curiosity compels my life and my poetry.
It sounds cliche, but writing saves me from myself. I write because the squall inside becomes distracting. Focus on creative work pulls my mind from looping or intrusive thoughts, directing that energy toward a creative process. Writing helps me to process, express, and discover; allows me to explore the motions and emotions of the darker recesses and emerge lighter.
I became a mother in 2021. Motherhood has been the most challenging and most rewarding experience of my life: a bit isolating and a lot transformative. It plunged me deeper into my creativity, exploring ways to record motherhood’s moments and emotions and to portray the transience of attention and time. I’ve developed deep respect for the discipline to continue artmaking amid life’s changes and the redirection of creative impulse when circumstances demand our attention elsewhere.
The connections and therapeutic power between lived experience and artmaking are complex. Some works flow from us in a soothing cascade and some are structured explorations. We write through major life changes and minor annoyances, through healing and fear, loss and joy. We journal to keep a record of days or nuanced introspection. We attempt a sense of play or experimentation, shaking off established norms or forms. Many of us are creative explorers working across mediums. We fit creativity into life with a toddler, or an aging loved one, or a classroom of students, finding ways to keep our creative fires alive. We emphasize attention in a world seeking to monetize or obliterate that very attention.
With Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. XI, No. 1, I invite you to consider what you discover at the intersection of curiosity and creativity. How is your creative process influenced by curiosity, by subjects or motifs you return to, or by what you’re hesitant to explore? How do your curiosity and creativity help shape the person you hope to be? How do you balance life’s responsibilities with your call to artistic endeavors? I’m deeply honored to read your words, to learn what fuels your curiosity and creativity.
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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.