First up, here are our staff updates for Issue 6:

Our Fiction Editor Roy Kesey is also stepping into the new role of Associate Editor-in-Chief! He will still be overseeing and carefully curating a robust fiction selection for Issue 6, but he will also be taking greater part in the day-to-day administrative work it takes to run this beloved magazine of ours.

 

 

Brand new to the staff is Senior Poetry Reader, Alyse Bensel, whose fabulous poems “Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection in Every Parallel Universe” and “Westward Expansion” we published in Issue 5! She’s also an alumnus of Washington College. Here’s a little more about her:

Alyse Bensel is the author of Rare Wondrous Things, a poetic biography of Maria Sibylla Merian (Green Writers Press, forthcoming 2020), and three chapbooks, including Lies to Tell the Body (Seven Kitchens Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry International, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of English at Brevard College, where she directs the Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference.

 
Our Cherry Tree Production Intern for Issue 6 is Abby Wargo ’20! Here’s a bit about her:

 

Abby Wargo is a senior English major with minors in creative writing and journalism, editing & publishing at Washington College. Abby has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Elm, WC’s student newspaper, since 2018. 

 

We’ve also added two new student positions to our editorial staff! Justin Nash ’21 will be serving as the inaugural Cherry Tree Administrative Fellow. Tamia Williams ’21 will be our inaugural Cherry Tree Copyediting Fellow. Here’s more about these two:

 
Justin Nash is a junior studying English, communication and media, and studio art at Washington College. His essay, “Moments Suggesting This Body Does Not Always Belong to Me,” was named a runner-up for the 2018 Norton Writer’s Prize. He is the managing editor of the college’s liberal arts journal, the Washington College Review; assistant editor of the college’s student literary journal, The Collegian; and a nonfiction screener for Cherry Tree.

 
Tamia Williams is a student at Washington College, with majors in English and Communication as well as minors in Creative Writing and Journalism, Editing & Publishing. Once she graduates, she plans to pursue editing and publishing as a career with focuses in Fiction and Nonfiction. In her free time, she scrapbooks, reads, and writes.

 

 

 

 

We have a few returning screeners from our previous reading period and some new faces from the spring 2019 Literary Editing & Publishing class at Washington College: 

Allison Billmire	MacKenzie Brady	Victoria Gill
Mary Golden	Nicole Hatfield	Emily Holt
Rebecca Kanaskie	Justin Nash	Shannon Neal
Catalina Righter	Lonessa Rupertus	Diana Sanchez
Brooke Schultz	Lauren Souder	Tamia Williams

 

Subscription Promotion!

In order to help potential submitters (and readers) get their hands on more of our back issues, we’ve also decided to offer a subscription promotion during the upcoming open reading period. From August 1 to October 1, 2019, if you buy a two-year subscription to Cherry Tree, you will also receive two back issues of your choice for absolutely free! In order to receive your free back issues, just email lit_house@washcoll.edu and include the two issue numbers (1-4) after completing your subscription purchase. Please note that you are NOT required to be a current subscriber in order to submit your work for consideration, nor will subscribing ever have ANY bearing on how we read and evaluate your submission. As always, it is absolutely free to submit your work to Cherry Tree!

 

Our Issue 6 open reading period runs from August 1-October 1, 2019! 

So please mark your calendars and send us your freshest (and shadiest) poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction starting August 1. To get a better idea of exactly what we’re looking for, check out our submission guidelines and read some sample work from our previous issues. We pay $20 per contributor, as well as two copies of the printed issue. And we are so excited to read your work!

 

The art on the cover of Issue 5 is a painting called simply “Doe,” by Canadian artist Chris Austin. We just love the simultaneously serene and radioactive glow of this painting. We strongly believe the gorgeous writing in this issue is brings this same ghostly-transcendent but firmly present voice in its approach to both disaster and beauty.

Inside the issue is brand-new poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade from Lauren K. Alleyne, Aldo Amparán, E. Kristin Anderson, John Andrews, Matthew James Babcock, Alyse Bensel, Justin Bigos, Tommye Blount, Brooke Champagne, Alan Chazaro, Emily Cinquemani, Kevin Clouther, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Oliver de la Paz, Denise Duhamel, Kelly Dulaney, Catherine Edmunds, Stevie Edwards, Kate Gaskin, Joanna Gordon, Kyle Hemmings, Lucas Jacob, Sally J. Johnson, Jane Kim, Ben Loory, Suvi Mahonen, Alicia Mountain, Miguel Murphy, Andy Powell, Kevin Prufer, Dean Rader, Scott Ragland, Nancy Reddy, Phoebe Reeves, Aaron Smith, Alison Stine, Matthew Thorburn, Maureen Thorson, Milla van der Have, Kelly Garriott Waite, Joanna White, Patrick Whitfill, and Claire Yoo. Coming in at 193 pages, this new issue is packed with incredible work from both American and international writers that will bring you back for several re-reads.

 

 

The issue is officially released on February 15, 2019 and will be shipped out to contributors and subscribers at that time. We will also debut Issue 5 at the AWP Conference in Portland from March 28-30. We’ll have copies available in the Bookfair at the Rose O’Neill Literary House booth #6054, along with the rest of our Literary House Press publications and swag.

And if you haven’t already, today is the perfect day to subscribe! Starting this month, all new subscriptions will begin with Issue 5. 

 

Cherry Tree’s fourth issue is praised in a new review by Anne Graue published at NewPages. 

The following contributors got shoutouts for their work: Jan Beatty, Berry Grass, Jenn Leiker, Michelle McGurk, Jessica Murray, Ellen Davis Sullivan, and Julie Marie Wade. Congrats, y’all!

Read the full review here: Cherry Tree 2018 at NewPages. 

You can get a copy of Issue 4 for your further reading pleasure at Small Press Distribution. We’re currently finishing up production on our next issue. So, subscribe today for Issue 5!

From November 23 through December 19, the Literary House Press will be offering special holiday deals to our online shoppers. For the 2018 winter holiday season, we are giving away free gifts with certain purchases:

• Buy a 2-year subscription to Cherry Tree, get a free Literary Shade broadside!

• Buy a Back Issue Bundle, get a free Cherry Tree tote bag!

• Buy any 2 LHP broadsides, get a third free! After purchase, e-mailllusby2@washcoll.edu with your third broadside choice.

 

 

See all of our Cherry Tree subscription options here. 

See our letterpress broadsides here.

See our deluxe & standard edition chapbooks here. 

All purchases may be made through our online form here. 

Please note: The Literary House Press web payment form will NOT work properly if used in Microsoft Edge or Explorer. Please use a different web browser to complete your purchase, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari.

And don’t forget to check out our paperback books, available on Small Press Distribution and Amazon!  

 

Happy Holidays from the staff at the Literary House Press!

 

POETRY

• Lauren K. Alleyne
• Aldo Amparán
• Alyse Bensel
• Tommye Blount
• Alan Chazaro
• Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
• Oliver de la Paz
• Denise Duhamel
• Alicia Mountain
• Miguel Murphy
• Kevin Prufer
• Dean Rader
• Nancy Reddy
• Phoebe Reeves
• Aaron Smith
• Alison Stine
• Matthew Thorburn
• Maureen Thorson
• Milla van der Have
• Patrick Whitfill
• Claire Yoo

FICTION

• Kevin Clouther
• Catherine Edmunds
• Kyle Hemmings
• Ben Loory
• Scott Ragland

NONFICTION

• Brooke Champagne
• Kelly Dulaney
• Joanna Gordon
• Jane Kim
• Suvi Mahonen
• Kelly Garriott Waite
• Joanna White

LITERARY SHADE

• E. Kristin Anderson
• John Andrews
• Matthew James Babcock
• Justin Bigos
• Emily Cinquemani
• Stevie Edwards
• Kate Gaskin
• Lucas Jacob
• Sally J. Johnson
• Andy Powell

 

Thank you to our fantastic student screeners: Allison Billmire, MacKenzie Brady, Samantha Clark, Mary Golden, Emily Holt, Emily Kreider, Justin Nash, Shannon Neal, Catalina Righter, Lonessa Rupertus, Saoirse, Brooke Schultz, Catherine Shaw, Lauren Souder, and Alexandra Weiss. Thank you as well to our fabulous senior readers in poetry: Julia Armstrong and Alex Vidiani; in fiction: Sarah Blackman and Elise Gallagher; and in nonfiction: Elise Gallagher (again!). And a huge round of applause for our Poetry Editor James Allen Hall (who is also our Editor-in-Chief), our Fiction Editor Roy Kesey, our Creative Nonfiction Editor Emma Sovich, and our brand-new Literary Shade Editor Kimberly Quiogue Andrews. Issue 5 is only possible because all of the hours of work that you each do for Cherry Tree.

The issue is now being laid out by our Production Intern Justin Nash (who also doubled as a nonfiction screener). Proofs will be sent out to all contributors in late December or early January. Issue 5 is scheduled for release on February 15, 2019, and then it will debut at the 2019 AWP Conference in Portland at the end of March. So if you do not have a current subscription, now is the perfect time to remedy that! Buy a subscription for yourself or as a holiday gift for a dear friend. Just subscribe! And you can do that here.

 

• Freddy, by Ron Currie, Jr.
• [Dead] Sister, by Brian Phillip Whalen
• Two-Headed Taxidermied Calf, by Nicky Beer
• Ode to Sirin, the Bird Goddess of the Siberian Milky Way, by Barbara Hamby 
• The Game of Life, by Julie Marie Wade
• Fantasy with Trump in Tree, by Maria Nazos

Congratulations to our Issue 4 nominees! We wish you the best of luck!

 

Beginning with Issue 5, Dr. Kimberly Quiogue Andrews is stepping into the role of Literary Shade Editor at Cherry Tree!

She will be selecting submissions from poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to feature in the Literary Shade section of each new issue. All work submitted to our poetry, fiction, or nonfiction categories will be considered for inclusion in the Literary Shade feature section. Here’s a bit more about Dr. Andrews, who previously served as one of our contributing editors:

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Washington College. A poet and literary critic, she is the author of the chapbook BETWEEN (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and is currently working on a scholarly book that explores the interplay between literary-analytical modes of thinking and experimental poetic practice in and around the age of professionalized creative writing programs. Her critical work has appeared in Textual Practice and New Literary History, and her poems and essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, ASAP/J, Poetry Northwest, Grist, The Recluse, BOMB, West Branch, and elsewhere. 

 

If you’re not yet familiar with our Literary Shade feature, which we debuted in Issue 3, here’s a brief description of what we’re keeping a lookout for:

In the great tradition of Jennie Livingston’s documentary, Paris is Burning, we are looking for impeccably-crafted shade. But not just ordinary shade: we’re especially interested in poems, short stories, or nonfiction that throws shade at the institutions that have whitewashed our literature and history, be they laws or events or texts authored by dead old cisgendered white supremacist misogynistic homophobes. We believe that shade—subversive wit, withering critique—can empower. And we want to read the shadiest shade around.

 

We have a few returning screeners from our previous reading period and some new faces from the spring 2018 Literary Editing & Publishing class at Washington College: 

Allison  Billmire	MacKenzie Brady	Samantha Clark
Mary Golden	Emily Holt	Emily Kreider
Justin Nash	Shannon Neal	Catalina Righter
Lonessa Rupertus	Saoirse	Brooke Schultz
Catherine Shaw	Lauren Souder	Alexandra Weiss

 

Our Issue 5 open reading period runs from August 1-October 1, 2018!

So please mark your calendars and send us your freshest (and shadiest) poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction starting August 1. To get a better idea of exactly what we’re looking for, check out our submission guidelines and read some sample work from our previous issues. We pay $20 per contributor, as well as two copies of the printed issue. And we are so excited to read your work!

 

 

Everyone who buys a 2-year subscription between May 1 & 31, will also receive a free letterpress broadside of our Literary Shade illustration hand-colored and signed by artist Stu Cawley.

 

Here’s a close-up of this gorgeous new broadside:

Celebrate Literary Shade with us this May at Cherry Tree! Subscribe here.

 

 

For National Poetry Month, Cherry Tree is giving away free poetry! Everyone who buys a 2-year subscription between April 1 & 30, will also receive a free copy of the Literary House Press poetry anthology The Book of Scented Things: 100 Contemporary Poems About Perfume, edited by Jehanne Dubrow & Lindsay Lusby.

Stop & smell the cherry blossoms with us this April at the Literary House Press & Cherry Tree! Subscribe here.

 

 

Our students will be staffing Booth 717 in the Bookfair, where we’ll have copies of our Literary House Press books and broadsides, including our newest chapbook Scream (or never minding), by Lia Purpura. We’ll also be debuting a few brand-new publications just in time for the Conference.

Our fifth AWP Commemorative Broadside features a poem first published in the new anthology Reading Queer. “God and the G-Spot,” by Ellen Bass is now a piece of letterpress-printed art. The author has signed the entire limited edition and they will be available for purchase in the Bookfair at the special Conference-exclusive price of $15 each!

 

 

The fourth issue of Cherry Tree will also debut there, featuring new poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade from Hussain Ahmed, Derrick Austin, Jan Beatty, Nicky Beer, Ron Currie, Jr., Christopher DeWeese, Chelsea Dingman, Piotr Florczyk, Berry Grass, Gillian Haines, Barbara Hamby, Leslie Harrison, Eleanor Hooker, Isabelle Hughes, Rosemary Jones, Julie Kane, Jenna Le, Jenn Leiker, James McCorkle, Michelle McGurk, Jessica Murray, Maria Nazos, Lucy Palmer, Alison Pelegrin, Ayesha Raees, Monica Isabel Restrepo, Alan Shapiro, SM Stubbs, Ellen Davis Sullivan, Anya Vostrova, Julie Marie Wade, Brian Phillip Whalen, Lesley Wheeler, Annie Julia Wyman, and Natalie Young. At a brimming 253 pages, this is our biggest issue yet. Grab your copy in the Bookfair for a special Conference price of $10 for a single issue or $20 for a 2-year subscription!

 

 

In addition to our exclusive lower prices at AWP, we’ll also be offering special Conference bundles at Booth 717! These offers will not be available after the Conference, so be sure to take advantage of them while they last:

• Buy a 2-year Cherry Tree subscription, get a free tote bag!
• Buy a copy of Still Life with Poem or The Book of Scented Things, get the commemorative broadside for just $10 more!
• Buy any 2 Literary House Press books, get a free tote bag!
• Buy any 2 Literary House Press broadsides, get a 3rd free!
• For any purchase of $50 or more, get a free tote bag, hat, or water bottle!

Come see us in Tampa! We can’t wait to be there!

 

 

We are so incredibly excited to be able to welcome the fourth issue of our beloved Cherry Tree into the world; and we are so grateful to all of you for sharing in our excitement!

We kicked everything off with our Issue 4 Staff Launch Party on February 15. Our nearby editorial staff got together to eat pizza and cake, and to dig gluttonously into reading and admiring our new issue. 

We also asked contributors, subscribers, and friends to fill Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with their CT4 selfies & photos, using the hashtag #cherrybomb. And you did it!

 

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our fantastic contributors: 

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our lovely editorial staff: 

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our wonderful subscribers: 

 

We even got a #cherrybomb photo from our fabulous cover photographer: 

Thanks to all of you (and your photogenic pets) for helping us to announce the arrival of CT4 to the social media world. You rock our cherry-loving world! And because we love them all so much, we have gathered all of your #cherrybomb photos in a happy little gallery you can flip through here: 

P.S. If you haven’t subscribed yet, do it now! 

 

The art on the cover of issue 4 is a photograph called “Children Running in Backlight (Dozza, Italy),” by Italian artist Claudio Cricca. We just love the vibrant color, motion, and light captured in this photograph. We strongly believe the incredible writing in this issue has these same luminous qualities.

Inside the issue is brand-new poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade from Hussain Ahmed, Derrick Austin, Jan Beatty, Nicky Beer, Ron Currie, Jr., Christopher DeWeese, Chelsea Dingman, Piotr Florczyk, Berry Grass, Gillian Haines, Barbara Hamby, Leslie Harrison, Eleanor Hooker, Isabelle Hughes, Rosemary Jones, Julie Kane, Jenna Le, Jenn Leiker, James McCorkle, Michelle McGurk, Jessica Murray, Maria Nazos, Lucy Palmer, Alison Pelegrin, Ayesha Raees, Monica Isabel Restrepo, Alan Shapiro, SM Stubbs, Ellen Davis Sullivan, Anya Vostrova, Julie Marie Wade, Brian Phillip Whalen, Lesley Wheeler, Annie Julia Wyman, and Natalie Young. At a spine-cracking 253 pages, this new issue breaks our Cherry Tree records for biggest issue on the books!

The issue is officially released on February 15, 2018 and will be shipped out to contributors and subscribers at that time. We will also debut Issue 4 at the AWP Conference in Tampa from March 8-10. We’ll have copies available in the Bookfair at the Rose O’Neill Literary House booth #717, along with the rest of our Literary House Press publications and swag.

And if you haven’t already, today is the perfect day to subscribe! Starting today, all new subscriptions will begin with Issue 4. 

From November 24 through December 20, the Literary House Press will be offering special holiday deals to our online shoppers. For the 2017 winter holiday season, we are giving away free gifts with certain purchases:

• Buy a 2-year subscription to Cherry Tree, get a free Cherry Tree tote bag!

• Buy 2 of our standard edition chapbooks, get the third free!

• Buy any 2 LHP broadsides, get a third free! After purchase, e-mailllusby2@washcoll.edu with your third broadside choice.

 

 

See our deluxe & standard edition chapbooks here.

See our letterpress broadsides here.

All purchases may be made through our online form here. 

Please note: The Literary House Press web payment form will NOT work properly if used in Microsoft Edge or Explorer. Please use a different web browser to complete your purchase, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari.

And don’t forget to check out our paperback books, available on Small Press Distribution and Amazon! 

 

Happy Holidays from the staff at the Literary House Press!

 

 

Here’s our final list of contributors for Issue 4 of Cherry Tree:

 

POETRY

• Hussain Ahmed
• Jan Beatty
• Nicky Beer
• Chelsea Dingman
• Piotr Florczyk
• Barbara Hamby
• Leslie Harrison
• Eleanor Hooker
• Julie Kane
• Jenna Le
• James McCorkle
• Jessica Murray
• Alison Pelegrin
• Ayesha Raees
• Alan Shapiro
• SM Stubbs
• Natalie Young

FICTION

• Ron Currie, Jr.
• Isabelle Hughes
• Michelle McGurk
• Lucy Palmer
• Ellen Davis Sullivan

NONFICTION

• Berry Grass
• Gillian Haines
• Rosemary Jones
• Monica Isabel Restrepo
• Anya Vostrova
• Brian Phillip Whalen
• Annie Julia Wyman

LITERARY SHADE

• Derrick Austin
• Christopher DeWeese
• Jenn Leiker
• Maria Nazos
• Julie Marie Wade
• Lesley Wheeler

Thank you to our fantastic student screeners: Allison Billmire, Caroline Harvey, Emily Holt, Jeannie “Saoirse,” Ryan Manning, Catalina Righter, Amy Rohn, Brooke Schultz, Cate Shaw, Hope Watland, Emma Way, and Casey Williams. Thank you as well to our fabulous senior readers in poetry: Julia Armstrong and Alex Vidiani; in fiction: Sarah Blackman and Elise Gallagher; and in nonfiction: Elise Gallagher (again!). And a huge round of applause for our Poetry & Literary Shade Editor James Allen Hall (who is also our Editor-in-Chief), our Fiction Editor Roy Kesey, and our Creative Nonfiction Editor Emma Sovich. Issue 4 is only possible because all of the volunteer work that you all do for Cherry Tree.

The issue is now being laid out by our two-time Production Intern Caroline Harvey. Proofs will be sent out to all contributors in late December or early January. Issue 4 is scheduled for release on February 15, 2018, and then it will debut at the 2018 AWP Conference in Tampa in March. So if you do not have a current subscription, now is the perfect time to remedy that! Buy a subscription for yourself or as a holiday gift for a dear friend. Just subscribe! And you can do that here. 

 

 

• Out-of-Office, by R.M. Fradkin 
• Sex with Jesus, by Michael Walsh 
• To the Ten White Ten-Year-Olds in Indiana who Called a Friend “Nigger,” by Phillip B. Williams 
• Gun Show Loophole, by Erika Meitner 
• Mixed Tag, by Michael Chin 
• Body, by Tyler Mills 

Congratulations to our Issue 3 nominees! We wish you the best of luck!

 

 

Founding Editor: Jehanne Dubrow

Editor-in Chief: James Allen Hall

Managing Editor: Lindsay Lusby

Poetry Editor: James Allen Hall

Fiction Editor: Roy Kesey

Creative Nonfiction: Emma Sovich

Literary Shade Editor: James Allen Hall

Senior Poetry Readers: Julia Armstrong & Alex Vidiani

Senior Fiction Readers: Sarah Blackman & Elise Gallagher

Senior Nonfiction Reader: Elise Gallagher

Production Intern: Caroline Harvey ’18

Contributing Editors: Kimberly Q. Andrews, Eric Lorberer, Robert Mooney, Erin Murphy, Peter Turchi, Katherine Wagner, and Laura Maylene Walter

And here are our fresh-faced Issue 4 screeners, who are all current Washington College students or recent grads:

Allison Billmire	Caroline Harvey	Emily Holt
Jeannie	Ryan Manning	Catalina Righter
Amy Rohn	Brooke Schultz	Cate Shaw
Hope Watland	Emma Way	Casey Williams

 

We are all incredibly excited to read your poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade when we open for Issue 4 submissions on August 1!

 

In further news, beginning with our next issue, Cherry Tree is now a paying market for writers! Each contributor to Issue 4 will receive $20 for their work, in addition to the usual 2 contributors’ copies of the issue. Although this truly isn’t enough to compensate writers for what their work is worth, we’re hoping that this is just the beginning and we’ll be able to offer more in the future.

Submit your best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade on August 1 and GET PAID!

 

 

Cherry Tree’s third issue received further praise in a new review by Valerie Wieland published at NewPages.

The following contributors got shoutouts for their work: R.M. Fradkin, Michael Chin, Julie L. Moore, Michael Walsh, Nan Byrne, Erika Meitner, Tyler Mills, Kate Anger, and Rajiv Mohabir. Well done, y’all!

Read the full review here: Cherry Tree 2017 at NewPages.

And then subscribe, subscribe, subscribe!

 

 

The art on the cover of issue 3 is a painting called “Line Dance,” by Chestertown artist Marcy Dunn Ramsey. This painting showcases the beautiful reedy marsh-scape of our tiny Chester River wonderland here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Previously exhibited in the Carla Massoni Gallery, “Line Dance” is now in the private collection of Drew and Betsy Vaden in Newport Beach, California.

Inside the issue is brand-new poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary shade from Eloisa Amezcua, Kate Anger, Sarah Blake, CL Bledsoe, Paul Bone, Kim Bridgford, Nan Byrne, Lauren Camp, Doritt Carroll, Michael Chin, Charlotte Covey, Heidi Czerwiec, Stephanie Dickinson, R.M. Fradkin, Avital Gad-Cykman, Melanie Graham, Dave Housley, Anna Kelley, Shara Lessley, Matthew Lippman, Raye Hendrix May, Damon McLaughlin, Erika Meitner, Lynn Melnick, Tyler Mills, Michael Mingo, Rajiv Mohabir, Julie L. Moore, John A. Nieves, Ashley Robertson, Martha Silano, Matthew Thorburn, Robert Vivian, Stacey Waite, Cody Walker, Michael Walsh, and Phillip B. Williams. At a whopping 218 pages, this is our biggest issue yet!

Although the issue is officially released on February 15, 2017, we will be debuting issue 3 at the AWP Conference in Washington, DC from February 9-11. We’ll have copies available in the Bookfair at the Rose O’Neill Literary House booth #626.

And on Thursday, February 9, we will have our official launch event! Cherry Tree is co-hosting a fabulous AWP offsite reading with Baltimore-based Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review at Busboys & Poets @ 5th & K from 9:00-11:00 p.m. We’ll have readings from Cherry Tree contributors Michael Chin (fiction), Rajiv Mohabir (creative nonfiction), Lynn Melnick (poetry), and Julie Marie Wade (creative nonfiction), as well as readings by Eckleburg contributors and editors. So please mark your calendars and be sure to join us! The first 50 attendees will get free drink tickets (wink wink).

And if you haven’t already, today is the perfect day to subscribe!

 

 

From December 5 through 19, the Literary House Press will be offering special holiday deals to our online shoppers. For the 2016 winter holiday season, we are giving away free gifts with certain purchases:

 

Buy a 2-year subscription to Cherry Tree, get a free copy of issue 1 & a Cherry Tree tote bag!

 

Buy any 2 LHP broadsides, get a third free! After purchase, email llusby2@washcoll.edu with your third broadside choice.

 

For any purchase of $50 or more, get one free swag item: Rose O’Neill Literary House or Cherry Tree tote bag, a trucker hat (white/red or black/white), or a Nalgene water bottle. After purchase, email llusby2@washcoll.edu with your choice of swag item.

 

 

See our deluxe & standard edition chapbooks here. 

See our letterpress broadsides here.  

All purchases may be made through our online form here. Please note: The Literary House Press web payment form will NOT work properly if used in Microsoft Edge or Explorer. Please use a different web browser to complete your purchase, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari. 

And don’t forget to check out our paperback books, available on Small Press Distribution and Amazon!  

 

Happy Holidays from the staff at the Literary House Press!

 

 

Poetry: 

• Eloisa Amezcua
• Sarah Blake
• CL Bledsoe
• Paul Bone
• Kim Bridgford
• Nan Byrne
• Lauren Camp
• Doritt Carroll
• Charlotte Covey
• Melanie Graham
• Anna Kelley
• Shara Lessley
• Matthew Lippman
• Raye Hendrix May
• Damon McLaughlin
• Erika Meitner
• Lynn Melnick
• Michael Mingo
• Julie L. Moore
• John A. Nieves
• Martha Silano
• Matthew Thorburn
• Stacey Waite
• Cody Walker
• Michael Walsh

 Fiction:

• Michael Chin
• Stephanie Dickinson
• R.M. Fradkin
• Avital Gad-Cykman
• Dave Housley
• Ashley Robertson

 

Nonfiction:

• Kate Anger
• Heidi Czerwiec
• Tyler Mills
• Rajiv Mohabir
• Robert Vivian

 

Literary Shade:

• Phillip B. Williams

 

Thank you to our fantastic student screeners: Nicolas Anstett, Julie Armstrong, Reilly D. Cox, Dylan Hogan, Sarah Mann, Ryan Manning, Meaghan Menzel, Aliya Merhi, Catalina Righter, and Emma Way. Thank you as well to our fabulous senior readers in poetry: Emma Sovich and Alex Vidiani; in fiction: Sarah Blackman and Elise Gallagher; and in nonfiction: Elise Gallagher (again!). And a huge round of applause for our Creative Nonfiction & Literary Shade Editor James Allen Hall (who is also our Editor-in-Chief), our Poetry Editor Jehanne Dubrow, and our Fiction Editor Roy Kesey. Issue 3 is only possible because all of the volunteer work that you all do for Cherry Tree.

The issue is now being laid out by our Production Intern Caroline Harvey. Proofs will be sent out to all contributors in late December. Issue 3 is scheduled for release on February 9, 2017 at the AWP Conference in DC. So if you do not have a current subscription, now is the perfect time to remedy that! Buy a subscription for yourself or as a holiday gift for a dear friend. Just subscribe! And you can do that here. 

 

 

 

And here are the five poems and one short story that we have nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prizes:  

• Child of the Desolate, by Claudia Emerson
• White Out, by sam sax
• Hatchet, by Roy Kesey
• MEMORANDUM: To Eustratius of Alexandria, regarding Enhanced Interrogation Technique Subcategory B, “The Inducement of Shame and Elimination of Bodily Sovereignty Via Forced Prostitution and Other Mechanisms,” by Sara Biggs Chaney
• from Letters to Mao (Dear Mao, / Even the island is not really an island…), by Jennifer S. Cheng
• Letter to the Republic, by Matthew Olzmann

 

Congratulations to our issue 2 nominees! We wish you the best of luck!

 

Brief note in service of transparency: Roy Kesey served as contributing editor for issues 1 & 2, and recently joined the staff as Fiction Editor (starting his tenure with issue 3). The selection of prize nominees is handled exclusively by the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor.

 

Starting with our third issue, Cherry Tree will now have a regular section dedicated to Literary Shade. The call for submissions for this section begins today! Here’s the section description:

In the great tradition of Jennie Livingston’s documentary, Paris is Burning, we are looking for impeccably-crafted shade. But not just ordinary shade: we’re especially interested in poems, short stories, or nonfiction that throws shade at the institutions that have whitewashed our literature and history, be they laws or events or texts authored by dead old cisgendered white supremacist misogynistic homophobes. We believe that shade—subversive wit, withering critique—can empower. And we want to read the shadiest shade around.

Payment is two copies of the journal, a year’s subscription, and a copy of a letterpress broadside of your choosing. 

And as with fiction and nonfiction, please send no more thantwenty-five pages of prose. If you are submitting poetry, send no more thanseven poems and upload them all as a single file.   

 

Since we are nearing the end of our regular reading period, which closes on October 15, we only have a short amount of time to receive your submissions of the greatest literary shade for this next issue. So if you have shade of the literary variety (and we know you do!) please send it to us between now and October 15. 

 

 

Somehow August has rolled around once again, which means that our Cherry Tree editorial staff and student screeners are gearing up for our next open reading period. We will be reading submissions in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction from August 15 to October 15 for our third issue, which will be released in February 2017 at the AWP Conference in Washington, DC. 

 

 

In the past few months we have had a few changes in the Cherry Tree masthead. Here’s our editorial line-up for issue 3 and beyond:

• Editor-in-Chief:  James Allen Hall
• Managing Editor:  Lindsay Lusby
• Poetry Editor (& Founder):  Jehanne Dubrow
• Fiction Editor:  Roy Kesey
• Nonfiction Editor:  James Allen Hall
• Senior Poetry Reader:  Emma Sovich
• Senior Poetry Reader:  Alex Vidiani
• Senior Fiction Reader:  Sarah Blackman
• Senior Fiction & Nonfiction Reader:  Elise Gallagher

You can see their smiling faces and read their bios on our website here. Also there, you will find our 2016 Production Intern, Caroline Harvey ’18, who will help us lay out the third issue after all of the final pieces are selected. Caroline isn’t entirely new to the business: she worked as the Literary House Press Intern for the Spring 2016 semester, during which she assisted in the editing and proofing of LHP’s newest poetry anthology, Still Life with Poem: Contemporary Natures Mortes in Verse. 

There is also a good mixture of new and familiar faces in the roster of student screeners for this upcoming reading period: Nick Anstett ’16, Julia Armstrong ’15, Reilly D. Cox ’16, Dylan Hogan ’16, Sarah Mann ’16, Ryan Manning ’17, Meaghan Menzel ’16, Aliya Merhi ’16, Catalina Righter ’17, and Emma Way ’16. 

We’re all so excited to read the fantastic submissions you send to us! So mark your calendars: send your best poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to Cherry Tree (via Submittable) between August 15 and October 15. Help us to make issue 3 the best yet!

 

 

And we’re back at The Stump with new readings from our second issue! Here are the featured contributors you can listen to on our page:

• Katie Berger, reading two poems from Swans
• Jennifer S. Cheng, reading an excerpt from her creative nonfiction piece “in between such shadows”
• Sally Rosen Kindred, reading her poem “An Aftermath”
• Emilia Phillips, reading her poem “Apostrophe in Oregon Hill”
• Lesley Wheeler, reading her two poems “Perimenopause” and “This Has Gone On Long Enough”
• Laura Madeline Wiseman, reading her poem “Studs”

We’re also once again featuring a few chosen pieces from the new print issue as preview PDF on our Work We Love page. Here you can read issue 2 excerpts from Rick Barot, Sara Biggs Chaney, Vievee Francis, Roy Kesey, and Jennifer S. Cheng!

And if you still haven’t had enough? Well, then it’s time to subscribe! Get a copy of the full second issue with a new subscription here. 

 

 

We are so incredibly excited to be able to welcome the second issue of our beloved Cherry Tree into the world; and we are so grateful to all of you for sharing in our excitement!

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our fantastic contributors: 

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our lovely editorial staff: 

 

We got #cherrybomb photos from our wonderful subscribers: 

 

We even got #cherrybomb photos from past-contributors-who-are-current-subscribers! 

 

Thanks to all of you (and your photogenic pets) for helping us to announce the arrival of CT2 to the social media world. You rock our cherry-loving world! And because we love them all so much, we have gathered all of your #cherrybomb photos in a happy little gallery you can flip through here: 

 

 

P.S. If you haven’t subscribed yet, do it now!

 

 

The art on the cover of issue 2 is a print called “Dawn’s Early Light,” by DC-area artist Joseph Craig English. It is an image of the Jefferson Memorial cast in silhouette. And the silhouetted branches hovering in the foreground are—you guessed it—cherry trees!

Inside the issue is brand-new poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction from Rick Barot, Katie Berger, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Sara Biggs Chaney, Jennifer S. Cheng, Claudia Emerson, Vievee Francis, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Roy Kesey, Sally Rosen Kindred, Keetje Kuipers, Elline Lipkin, Dave Madden, Dániel Nyikos, Wendy Oleson, Matthew Olzmann, Emilia Phillips, sam sax, Aaron Smith, Girija Tropp, Nicole Walker, Lesley Wheeler, and Laura Madeline Wiseman.

The issue is due to be released on February 15, 2016. And if you haven’t already, today is the perfect day to subscribe!

 

One of the poems included in Cherry Tree, Julie Kane’s “As If,” was selected by renowned poet and critic Edward Hirsch for the 2016 edition of Best American Poetry.

Hirsch’s selection of Kane’s poem positions Cherry Tree amongst the likes of The New Yorker and Poetry Magazine, long-running publications well-respected by the selection committee for Best American Poetry.

Kane’s poem was a clear favorite among Cherry Tree’s founding editor Jehanne Dubrow, her fellow faculty editors, and her staff of student screeners, who Dubrow says are trained “to look for pieces that pay close attention to the relationship between form and content, that use language beautifully but also to speak about important matters, and that risk something emotionally and/or intellectually.”

Dubrow developed a course, “Literary Editing & Publishing,” specifically to prepare student screeners for the task at hand. In addition to providing hands-on training in the process of editing and publishing a top-tier literary journal, the course includes extensive research and discussion of nationally recognized literary magazines and covers topics such as a publication’s mission statement, its aesthetic vision, and its editorial practices.

“As If” stood out to Dubrow and the students both for its rich content and imagery. “Julie Kane’s poem is a brilliant sonnet that tells quite a very big story in its 14 lines,” Dubrow says. “That Kane can do so much in such a short poem, each line filled with vivid imagery and furthering the narrative, is what makes the text such an impressive, high-wire act of language.”

James Hall, the poetry and creative nonfiction editor of Cherry Tree, was drawn to the intense language and structure of the poem. “There was so much tension and propulsion in the language itself, which is characteristic of Kane’s work in general.  Like Professor Dubrow, I was immediately drawn to the way Kane interweaves the personal and the political,” Hall says.

Edward Hirsch, the 2016 guest editor of Best American Poetry, is the author of the national bestseller, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. He has also published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, which anthologizes 35 years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker calls “a masterpiece of sorrow.”

The second issue of Cherry Tree will be available on February 15, 2016. Presale and subscriptions for Cherry Tree are available here.  Best American Poetry 2016, published by Simon & Schuster, will be available for purchase in September.

Enormous congratulations to Cherry Tree ‪‎contributor Julie Kane, whose poem “As If” (which first appeared in our inaugural issue) has been chosen for the 2016 edition of Best American Poetry by guest editor Edward Hirsch! This volume is due to be released on September 6, 2016.

Thank you, Julie, for taking us along for the ride! We are thrilled for you and your beautiful sonnet.