Cherry Tree
Founded in 2014, with its debut issue released on February 15, 2015, Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal @ Washington College is an annual literary magazine featuring poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade by emerging and established writers from across the United States and all over the world. Issue 12 will release in 2026.
Founded in 2014, with its debut issue released on February 15, 2015, Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal @ Washington College is an annual literary magazine featuring poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and
literary shade by emerging and established writers from across the United States and
all over the world. Issue 12 will release in 2026.The name and ethos of Cherry Tree rest on the story of George Washington and his ax: the founding myth of the American national character. That self-serving story is artful in its way, and because it is so transparently apocryphal, it is uniquely open to critiques that might lead to useful truths.
Cherry Tree appears under the imprint of the Literary House Press, the publishing arm of the Rose O'Neill Literary House, a cultural center that has promoted the arts for nearly fifty years. Washington
College undergraduates participate in all facets of the production of this print journal,
though professional writers serve as genre editors and fill most senior reader positions.
Although the journal is still growing, Cherry Tree has already received national recognition. Poems from three of its seven issues have
been selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry (2016, 2017, and 2020), and many poems have been chosen for reprinting by Poetry Daily Verse Daily, and the Orison Anthology. Prose has been listed as “notable” in Best American Essays, and pieces have also appeared in Best Microfictions (2020).
Check out our masthead & readers. Issue 12 will open for submissions on August 1, 2025 and close October 1.
About Issue 12 (Feb 2025):
Our tenth issue features work by Carl Phillips, Erica Dawson, Nico Amador, Julie Marie Wade, Steven Leyva, Amy Thatcher, Santiago Marquez Ramos, Steven Leyva, and Jenny Johnson, among others.
Select Reviews and Press:
"Union" by Adam Scheffler (Issue 7) featured on The Talbot Spy
"The Wildness" by Jeannine Hall Gailey (Issue 6) featured on Verse Daily
"A Turn of the Plow, A Furrow, a Line of Writing" by Angie Macri (Issue 6) featured on Verse Daily
"The Lives of My Childhood" by Hannah VanderHart (Issue 6) featured on Verse Daily
"Memorial for a Tractor Left Idling" by F. Daniel Rzicznek (Issue 6) featured on Verse Daily
“Diaspora Sonnet 34” by Oliver de la Paz (Issue 5) featured on Verse Daily
“Car Prayer of the Child Bride" by Alison Stine (Issue 5) featured on Verse Daily
“Archaeology" by Kevin Prufer (Issue 5) featured on Verse Daily
Review of Issue 4 by Anne Graue on NewPages
Review of Issue 3 by Valerie Wieland on NewPages
“New Lit on the Block” feature by Denise Hill on NewPages