By Kapua Iao
For the past few years, we have been busy creating chapbooks! 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. Roz and Linda were and are fantastic writers and fantastic women. In 2021 we published three more incredible collections, No Batteries Required (Ellen Dooling Reynard), St. Paul Street Provocations (Patti Ross), and Listen (Ute Carson). This year, we had the privilege of working with three local, Baltimore authors with their collections, The most beautiful garden (Nikita Rimal Sharma), when the daffodils die (Darah Schillinger), and What is Another Word for Intimacy? (Amanda Baker).
Given all the fantastic authors we’ve worked with one on one, we couldn’t wait to review and choose our 2023 chapbook authors. The review committee blindly read through 79 submissions, and every chapbook 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 longlist of 20 chapbooks then a shortlist of 10 chapbooks (see below for our longlist and shortlist), eventually selecting three to publish in 2023. It was difficult to email every submitter letting them know our decision (writing an acceptance email is as hard as a decline as you never know how either message will be received), but the process is done, and we are so excited to work with the three chosen.
So, without further ado, let’s meet the 2023 Yellow Arrow chapbook authors!
Ann Weil
Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman
coming April 2023
Ann Weil writes at her home on the corner of Stratford and Avon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and on a deck boat at Snipe’s Point Sandbar off Key West, Florida. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in more than 45 journals and anthologies including Crab Creek Review, Bacopa Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Shooter Literary Magazine, Eastern Iowa Review, and DMQ Review. Ann earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and is a former special education teacher and professor of education. Read more of Ann’s poetry at annweilpoetry.com.
Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman explores beauty, womanhood, loving, living fully, and ultimately, aging, from the perspective of a 61-year-old woman (me!).
When did you first realize words have power?
Ha! Great question. I first realized words have power at the age of seven when I won a contest for my poem “Wobbly the Pumpkin Witch.” That was a big day for me, and I still remember the words to that poem (my 85-year-old mother does, too!). But seriously, words have always been important to me, first as a reader—my favorite pastime ever. Little Women slayed me as a teen and when I was introduced to Mary Oliver as a young mother, my life was truly transformed. Imagine that! Poetry can change your life. As an academic, I poured myself into my research and wrote scholarly articles for the field of special education, but my right-brained heart couldn’t wait to get back to reading and writing poetry. Writing has become my daily joy, and joy is its own source of power, right?
Shantell Hinton Hill
Black girl magic & other elixirs
coming July 2023
Shantell Hinton Hill is the ultimate Renaissance woman. An engineer turned pastor, Shantell situates her work at the intersections of social justice, public theology, and Black feminism/womanism. A native of Conway, Arkansas, Shantell is married to Rev. Jeremy Hill. They recently welcomed their first child, Sophie June, to their growing family. Shantell obtained a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. She also earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.
She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the National Society of Black Engineers. She is also an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Her vocational experiences include work as a process control engineer, a Bible teacher, and as Assistant University Chaplain at Vanderbilt University. At Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Shantell focuses on community engagement, faith-based coalition building, and narrative change to imagine more just communities in Arkansas. In her spare time, Shantell is also a freelance writer/author and curates digital content that centers the wholeness and thriving.
Black girl magic & other elixirs is a poetry collection that uplifts the embodied experiences ranging from Black girlhood to womanhood, particularly in the context of growing up in the 90s in the American south. The collection brings to bear the often-unspoken truths about the survival, wit, and skill Black girls and women develop in a world dominated by a myriad of interlocking oppressions. Additionally, this collection seeks to pay homage and build upon the revolutionary work of Black women authors, poets, leaders, and culture bearers. The thematic story arc is an in-depth journey into the nuances of the over-popular term “Black girl magic” juxtaposed with the struggle to realize a world where such magic would no longer need to exist. I am hopeful this collection illustrates that I am passionate about the intersections of justice, storytelling, ethics, and Black women’s spirituality.
When did you first realize words have power?
I started writing my first novel when I was eight or nine years old. I vividly remember writing neatly lined words onto a yellow notepad of a story about a little girl who runs away and forges an adventurous life on her own. It was the summertime, and I was spending several weeks at my grandparents’ house in Greenwood, Mississippi. Besides languishing in the oppressive jim crow-esque heat, there was nothing to do except sit in the front room and listen to the ticktock of 60 Minutes or the gospel messages of John Hagee—my grandfather’s favorite shows to watch while he was sleeping soundly in his folding chair. In those days, my grandfather’s words were law. and his wishes were sovereign.
But in my novel, I created the storyline, characters, and themes that transported me to a place where I could make decisions, take risks, and make-believe other people whom I understood and who I could pretend understood me. Writing gave me license to be big. It gave me the agency to be the commentator of my world rather than a passive participant in a world controlled by others. Discovering my gift for writing unlearned my eyes to see beyond the here and now. And it remains one of the most powerful tools I use today.
Cassie Premo Steele
Swimming in Gilead
coming October 2023
Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is an award-winning ecofeminist author of 16 books and audio programs ranging from novels to poetry and nonfiction and scholarship. Her novel, The ReSisters, published by a small, independent press in Maine, was a #1 bestseller on Amazon in the category of books for young people combating prejudice and racism. We Heal from Memory, her scholarly work published by Palgrave, advanced ideas about the power of poetry to heal individual and collective trauma 20 years before these ideas were introduced into the mainstream. Her nonfiction book, Earth Joy Writing, published by Ashland Creek Publishing in Oregon, continues to sell well seven years after publication and is available for sale at Congaree National Park, where she leads seasonal forest journaling workshops. Her poetry has won numerous awards, including the Archibald Rutledge Prize named after the first Poet Laureate of South Carolina, where she lives with her wife.
In the summer of 2020 as the pandemic was raging, Cassie joined a group of six women—three from Canada and three from the United States, four white and two women of color, and five lesbian and one straight—to sit and write together by Zoom once a week. They were strangers who came together during the loneliness and terror of that time and in the process, they helped each other survive.
They called themselves the Gilead Sisters.
The poems in Swimming in Gilead were written under the loving kindness and acceptance of these women who became “her eye” for each other. By opening into vulnerability, the poems show readers how to “swim in Gilead” with hope and perseverance as our rights as women are taken away.
When did you first realize words have power?
I was a child under the shadow of Watergate. In fact, I suggested putting blue construction paper on the floor and a white fence on the walls to decorate the classroom for parent night when I was in kindergarten. I knew even then that words have power—to empower and disempower, to reveal truths and cover lies, to help people and to hurt them.
I took these insights with me as I grew, and I used them to help me through a difficult childhood and later incidents of sexual assault. Poetry was always the medicine that helped me gain clarity, find healing, and rediscover my power.
The poems in Swimming in Gilead show that combination of vulnerability and authority as each poem reveals the deeper truths that allow readers to live with courage and a renewed connection to their creative fire.
We can’t wait to work with Ann, Shantell, and Cassie next year but definitely have to acknowledge all the incredible collections we received in the summer. In particular, we would love to give a shout out to our shortlisted and longlisted authors.
Meet our shortlisted authors:
Lorena Caputo
Shelby Catalano
Susan Cummins Miller
Theta Pavis
Melanie Weldon-Soiset
Sophie Zhu
And our longlisted authors:
Priscilla Arthur
Carol Barrett
M.M. Buckner
Margaret Cantú-Sánchez
Carolina Hospital
Saadia Khalid
Diane Payne
Ana C.H. Silva
Richelle Lee Slota
Ellie White
Such incredible writing! Thank you to everyone who took the time to send your words to us. It was a pleasure to read what you put on the page.
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.
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