Workshops with Yellow Arrow Publishing
Yellow Arrow workshops are supportive, generative, small-group sessions offered online. Each workshop is led by a talented and supportive instructor. Writers of all levels and genres are encouraged to join! Workshops are fantastic for emerging writers seeking an encouraging community of creatives, or for experienced writers looking for inspiration for new drafts. Workshop enrollments are intended for women-identifying writers unless stated otherwise.
If you’re not sure which workshops you want to enroll for yet, you can commit to making time for your creative journey by purchasing a Gift of Writing card now and use it to sign up for individual classes as you like. The Gift of Writing cards also make incredible gifts for the other writers in your life! You can purchase one here.
Best yet, the voucher never expires. And it is good for all workshops and classes!
Please consider donating a spot in one of Yellow Arrow Publishing’s workshops to a writer with financial hardship. When you donate a space, we’ll share with our community that we have free slots open and identify writers with financial hardships who are interested in participating.
If you are interested in attending one of our workshops but find the cost prohibitive, join our No-Cost Workshop Wait List. When a no-cost space becomes available, we will contact you!
2026 Workshop Schedule
Poetry is Life
In each class we will read and discuss new poets and old favorites who have written gems on our monthly theme. We will continue to study and gain inspiration from women poets. Past themes have included writing about nature, grief, protest, and more. In the class you will write and share new work. You will come away from each session with three or four drafts. Participants will have the opportunity to share work with their cohort and the instructor between sessions.
When: 11:00 am-1:30 pm EST
January 3, February 7, March 14, April 4, May 2, June 6
$35/session or $185 for all 6 sessions (Jan-June)
You are strongly encouraged to register for the full 6 sessions. However, you are invited to attend one session at a time as you are available.
Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
Class Size: 15 participants
About the instructor:
Ann Quinn is the poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Journal and conducts writing workshops at The Writer’s Center, for Yellow Arrow, and at writer’s conferences throughout the country. Ann holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family. Her award-winning work can be read in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Vietnam War Poetry, Haibun Today, and other journals 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. Visit her at annquinn.net.
Register here.
From Paint Swatch to Notebook: short vignette writing inspired by color
The history and origin of modern-day colors is rich and vibrant, worthy of discussion and reflection. Colors have evolved over centuries, attracting trends and popular culture in numerous ways. In this course, we will dive deep into the roots of how a few colors originated—their naming, their context, their problems, their use. We paint our bedroom and kitchen walls with variations of the six colors from the course, and would we still choose them if we knew their inception?
We will navigate a few colors per week, then develop our own short prose pieces based on our discussions, reading, observations, and individual schemas.
This class is for writers of beginner level and in any genre. You’ll leave this course with drafts of short prose and material conducive to pulling together a project , all inspired by colors, but not in the usual, tired way.
When: 6:30 pm-8:30 pm EST
March 12
March 19
March 26
$30/session or $80 for the 3 session bundle
Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
Class Size: 15 participants
About the instructor:
Elaina has seen her poetry, essays, and short stories published across dozens of literary journals. She’s also served as Editor in Chief for installment number two of a micro fiction anthology called 50-word Stories of 2023, while also acting as an acquisitions reader for Vine Leaves Press in the genres of memoir and historical fiction. She is also an active member of the Ocean County chapter for NOW: National Organization for Women.
Over the course of the last two years, Elaina has continued to devote her time to a few very important purposes—her favorite being The Toms River Arts Community (TRAC), bringing to fruition one of her final graduate projects that began as a hypothetical. In June 2025, Elaina collaborated with a two Jersey Shore high schools to collect and curate poetry, paintings, and textiles for a Queer Art Exhibition currently displayed in one of the main gallery windows in downtown Toms River. Future art exhibits for TRAC will call upon Elaina’s writing skills for informational panels and object labels. Elaina also served as communications coordinator for the Trans Equity Coalition’s community social calendar in 2024: a grassroots resource for transgender and nonbinary individuals in New Jersey.
Elaina is a writer, teacher, and graduate student. She wrote a short memoir collection of essays and poetry (Italian Bones in the Snow) and a short story collection (Heart and Salt) both published by Vine Leaves Press. She loves ice cream, antiques, dogs, and actively advocating for LGBTQ+ community. She’s a graduate student through CUNY in Museum Studies. Her newest memoir about growing up with sensory dysregulation in the 1980s and 1990s called Chomp, Press, Pull is a full-on immersive encounter. She loves ice cream, antiques, and fabric patterns.
Register here.
Micro Fiction: Craft and Publish
What is micro fiction in the context of a woman's busy and plucky life? In this workshop we will navigate and dissect the 50-word micro fiction/nonfiction art form. Weekly, we will enjoy the quality micro fiction work of other women across culture and identity through a "read, discuss, try it, and prepare for publication" approach. Micro fiction differs from poetry in that it's living prose, but is also related in that it reveals a narrative that is sometimes hard to tell. We will discover how the 50-word piece can pack a punch that is often more effective than longer prose.
There is a market and need for well-written, women-centric micro fiction, and we will unearth it.
When: 6:30 pm-8:30 pm EST
April 2
April 9
April 16
$30/ session or $75 for the 3 session bundle
Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
Class Size: 15 participants
About the instructor:
Elaina has seen her poetry, essays, and short stories published across dozens of literary journals. She’s also served as Editor in Chief for installment number two of a micro fiction anthology called 50-word Stories of 2023, while also acting as an acquisitions reader for Vine Leaves Press in the genres of memoir and historical fiction. She is also an active member of the Ocean County chapter for NOW: National Organization for Women.
Over the course of the last two years, Elaina has continued to devote her time to a few very important purposes—her favorite being The Toms River Arts Community (TRAC), bringing to fruition one of her final graduate projects that began as a hypothetical. In June 2025, Elaina collaborated with a two Jersey Shore high schools to collect and curate poetry, paintings, and textiles for a Queer Art Exhibition currently displayed in one of the main gallery windows in downtown Toms River. Future art exhibits for TRAC will call upon Elaina’s writing skills for informational panels and object labels. Elaina also served as communications coordinator for the Trans Equity Coalition’s community social calendar in 2024: a grassroots resource for transgender and nonbinary individuals in New Jersey.
Elaina is a writer, teacher, and graduate student. She wrote a short memoir collection of essays and poetry (Italian Bones in the Snow) and a short story collection (Heart and Salt) both published by Vine Leaves Press. She loves ice cream, antiques, dogs, and actively advocating for LGBTQ+ community. She’s a graduate student through CUNY in Museum Studies. Her newest memoir about growing up with sensory dysregulation in the 1980s and 1990s called Chomp, Press, Pull is a full-on immersive encounter. She loves ice cream, antiques, and fabric patterns.
Register here.
Ecopoetry
The term “ecopoetry” emerged as poets recognized the need to rethink how we respect and protect non-human life. We will read and discuss contemporary poetry that attempts, through a variety of approaches, to contribute to honoring and saving our endangered planet. We’ll spend some time each session drafting poems based on the models provided, with optional sharing.
(Appropriate for poets at all stages of their writing lives.)
When: 7:00 pm-8:30 pm EST
March 24
April 14
May 5
$28/ session or $74 for the 3 session bundle
You are strongly encouraged to register for the full 3 sessions. However, you are invited to attend one session at a time as you are available.
Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
Class Size: 15 participants
About the instructor:
Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay 2023). Among her many awards are the Miriam Chaikin Poetry Prize, Third Wednesday’s annual poetry prize, and finalist for the Lascaux Poetry Prize. Over 100 of her poems appear in literary journals and anthologies, including ecopoems in The Nature of Our Times anthology, Cutthroat, Banyan Review, Cold Mountain Review and others. She brings twenty-five years of teaching experience to her poetry workshops. Learn more about her at https://www.joannedurham.com.
Register here.
Bear Fragments
A person might not remember everything you say, but they’ll remember how you made them feel. Illuminating the “truth” within a reader—that tingle, or gut punch, or nausea, or warmth, etc. —is part of a writer’s magic. Each writer has a different magic formula for their spell, and you have to experiment. Practicing your magic formula, ensuring that your meaningful goals land with your reader, takes both technique and also some amount of artistic play. After this workshop, you’ll have familiarized yourself with new tools to elicit strong impressions and emotive gestures for your reader beyond plot (like structure, detail, and musicality) which can be applied to your work in creative ways.
When: May 17, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST
$28/ session
Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
Class Size: 15 participants
About the instructor:
Lillian Deja Snortland’s poetry, essays, features, creative nonfiction, and short stories have appeared in Postscript Magazine, OUCH! Magazine, Goucher Magazine, Yellow Arrow Publishing, and Amplify Arts publications, as well as been performed at Voxel theater and exhibited at the Temporary Arts Centre in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Her essay “The Tragedies of Ecstasy” was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize through After the Art literary magazine.
Her work moves within the intersection of internal social anxiety and external visceral transformation, often situated in surreal liminal spaces and featuring the permeability of the physical body. She loves collaborating with teams in any creative medium, including film writing/production (having participated in the Baltimore 48 Hour Film Project and the Maryland 72 Film Fest), tabletop role-play, and musical jams.
Originally from Eugene, Oregon, Snortland graduated from Carleton College with a B.A. in Classical Studies and a Minor in French/Francophone Studies, and has an M.F.A in Nonfiction from Goucher College. She enjoys lounging in parks, zooming via public transit to Baltimore cultural events, and hosting thematic parties in her apartment.
Register here.