Work samples

  • And still, she beckons

    My essay, “And still, she beckons,” was selected for exhibition at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s “Changing Chesapeake” exhibit and was on display throughout 2023. This essay will be published in print in the next edition of Campfire Stories focused on the Chesapeake Bay region. This essay is an excerpt from "Blood, and Other Bodies of Water," a hybrid chapbook comprised of vignettes that explore how bodies of water influence our ways of being.

  • To the bartender who tends to more than the bar

    "To the bartender who tends to more than the bar" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart. It was first published by Door is a Jar Magazine in 2023 and featured on The Slowdown Show hosted by Major Jackson. Strangers We Know By Heart was named a finalist in three chapbook competitions in 2023: The Black River Chapbook Competition (Black Lawrence Press), Chestnut Review Chapbook Competition (Chestnut Review Press), and the Digging Press Chapbook Competition (Digging Press). 

  • Flying into Chicago at Sunset - Ilanot Review.pdf

    Flying Into Chicago at Sunset is an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress. This excerpt was published in The Ilanot Review in May 2022 and was nominated for a Best-of-the-Net award. My memoir-in-progress was selected by Tin House for inclusion in the winter 2024 workshop, where I am currently editing the manuscript with the support of writers and mentors in my cohort.

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About Annie

Baltimore County

Annie Marhefka is a writer, publishing professional, and HR consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have been published by Lunch Ticket, Literary Mama, Pithead Chapel, Variant Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others, and she is working on a memoir about mother/daughter relationships. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and a nonfiction piece she wrote about the Chesapeake Bay was selected for exhibition at the… more

View Annie's Resume
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Strangers We Know By Heart (prose chapbook)

Strangers We Know By Heart is a collection of flash nonfiction pieces in the form of brief letters to strangers. The collection explores how we can find commonalities and room for empathy in every woman we encounter, if we just look for those connecting moments in each interaction, and to try to imagine other individual’s worlds. The subject matter spans a variety of themes–grief, infertility, sexual assault, aging, womanhood, motherhood. It is a love letter to women.

Strangers We Know By Heart was named a finalist in three chapbook competitions in 2023: The Black River Chapbook Competition (Black Lawrence Press), Chestnut Review Chapbook Competition (Chestnut Review Press), and the Digging Press Chapbook Competition (Digging Press). 

Individual pieces from the collection have been selected for publication by the following literary journals: Orange Blossom Review, Barely South Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Door is a Jar Magazine, and River and South Review. In addition, one of the pieces from this collection, "To the bartender who tends to more than the bar," was selected by Poet Major Jackson for inclusion on The Slowdown Show, a podcast produced by APM Studios in partnership with The Poetry Foundation and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

  • To the bartender who tends to more than the bar

    "To the bartender who tends to more than the bar" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, and was published by Door is a Jar Magazine in 2023, and featured on The Slowdown Show hosted by Major Jackson.
  • To the Hairstylist Who Always Knows What’s Best for Me

    "To the Hairstylist Who Always Knows What’s Best for Me" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, and was published by River & South Review in 2023.
  • To the woman who wonders if she could be happier

    "To the woman who wonders if she could be happier" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, and was published by Barely South Review in 2023.
  • To the woman in the waiting room with the feverish child

    "To the woman in the waiting room with the feverish child" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, and was published by The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts in 2023.
  • To the Woman You Were (Before You Were My Mother)

    "To the Woman You Were (Before You Were My Mother)" is a nonfiction excerpt from Annie Marhefka's collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, and was published by Orange Blossom Review in 2023.

    • Daughterhood (memoir in progress)

    In Daughterhood, the complexities of intergenerational mother/daughter relationships are explored in lyrical vignettes that both resonate and surprise in their honesty and vulnerability. The manuscript begins with one woman’s reckoning with grief and unresolved conflict with her mother, but its themes widen into an examination of the power dynamics that exist in parent/child roles, the societal pressures to become mothers and then to perfect contemporary motherhood, and an inquiry as to what is owed to mothers by their daughters. The vignettes vary in length and interweave snapshots of four generations of women’s relationships and conflict with meditations on truth, secrets, the lasting impacts of trauma, mental health, guilt, grief, and forgiveness.

    Excerpts from this manuscript have been featured in publications such as The Citron Review, Beaver Magazine, and Orange Blossom Review. The excerpt published in Beaver Magazine was nominated for 2023 Best of the Net. In addition, I have been selected to participate in the Tin House Winter Workshop in February 2024 based on an excerpt from this manuscript. 

    • Flying into Chicago at Sunset - Ilanot Review.pdf
      Flying Into Chicago at Sunset: Excerpt from memoir-in-progress published in The Ilanot Review in May 2022. This essay has been nominated for a Best-of-the-Net award.
    • _My Mother's Hands_ by Annie Marhefka - Lunch Ticket.pdf
      My Mother's Hands: Excerpt from my memoir-in-progress published in Lunch Ticket in August 2022.
    • The Chesapeake’s Cornucopia – annie marhefka.pdf
      Excerpt from essay collection that was published in Capsule Stories in December 2021.
    • My Mother and the Sea - The Phare.pdf
      Excerpt from my memoir-in-progress published in The Phare literary magazine in July 2021.
    • “What Do We Know of Mothers_” – By Annie Marhefka _ sheiskindred.org_.pdf
      Excerpt from my memoir-in-progress published on SheIsKindred.org in May 2022.
    • When the Lights Go Out – annie marhefka.pdf
      When The Lights Go Out: Excerpt from memoir-in-progress published in The Remington Review in January 2022.

    • Blood, and Other Bodies of Water (hybrid chapbook)

    "Blood, and Other Bodies of Water" is a hybrid chapbook comprised of vignettes that explore how bodies of water influence our ways of being. The individual flash pieces alternate between the exploration of how the Chesapeake Bay influences the lives of Marylanders, in contrast with how Lake Laugarvatn influences Icelandic residents. In particular, I have been delving into the ways in which the Chesapeake Bay has formed and shaped not just our environmental landscape, but the backdrop of our stories as well—how it influences our diets, our homes, our climate, our sense of self. An example of this work is my essay, “And still, she beckons,” which was selected for exhibition at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s “Changing Chesapeake” exhibit and is on display throughout 2023. This essay will be published in print in the next edition of Campfire Stories focused on the Chesapeake Bay region.

    I have been awarded a writing residency at the Gullkistan Center for the Arts in Laugarvatn, Iceland, for spring 2024 to focus on completion of this project. During this time, I will have the opportunity to produce and collaborate on my work with a cohort of international and multidisciplinary artists at a coworking studio. For a full month, I will have the opportunity to focus my work entirely on the craft of writing alongside a talented collective of creatives, pulling inspiration from the landscape and community. I will spend my writing time in the studios at Gullkistan, which include opportunities for workshops, exhibitions, and collaboration.

    • And still, she beckons_0.pdf

      “And still, she beckons,” was selected for exhibition at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s “Changing Chesapeake” exhibit and is on display throughout 2023. This essay will be published in print in the next edition of Campfire Stories focused on the Chesapeake Bay region.