About West Trade Review
ISSN (Print): 3070-4154
ISSN (Online): 3070-4162
West Trade Review is an imprint of Iron Oak Literary an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization and is published quarterly (one print edition each spring and an online quarterly each summer, fall, and winter). We strive to put forth the best contemporary poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction (personal essays/memoir), and publish a mix of established and up and coming writers/artists.
Work from our journal has been selected for inclusion in Best American Essays, Best Debut Short Stories (PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize), Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions, and we regularly nominate writers for all major prizes including Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best American Series, and others.
Our mission is to perpetuate the work of artists both well known and yet-to-be-known, simultaneously enriching our world through the written word. We strive to reflect diversity in style, content and perspective throughout poetry and prose and seek to publish work that is authentically human, which for us means beautiful, messy, and complicated; work that is fearless, honest, and unafraid of judgment because that's where truth lies; work that is carefully crafted and takes artistic risks.
All work chosen for publication in our journal is from our slush pile with the exception of one poet and one prose writer selected for interview in our annual spring print edition. Although we offer expedited response and personalized feedback at a cost, free general submissions are always available the first three days of each month from April to December. At other times there is a $3 submission charge to cover administrative costs.
We are committed to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and want to hear from underrepresented voices of all types (cis and trans women, gender non-conforming, agender, non-binary, genderqueer, those who are two-spirit, people with disabilities, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+).
We have recently featured poetry, prose, and interviews with Rebecca Makkai, Mónica Gomery, Lilly Dancyger, Athena Dixon, Emily Hall, Richard Blanco, Robert Wood Lynn, Kirstin Allio, Luke Johnson, Dylan Krieger, Arisa White, John Amen, and Sonya Vatomsky. Recent fiction writers include Emily Hall, David Obuchowski, and Seth Clabough. We have also featured the artwork of Denis Sarazhin, Sophia Heymans, Patrick Dougher, Nika Novich, Julie Heffernan, Duy Huynh, Raina Gentry, Carlos Estevez, Sophia Heymans, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Segun Aiyesan, Kelechi Nwaneri, and Tonia Nneji as well as the photography of Karina Juarez. We have also published interviews with each of these visual artists.
Although the roots of the journal go back a number of years, West Trade Review was founded in 2009 by Ken Harmon and based in Charlotte, NC. In 2020, a core group of editors, Ken Harmon, Kelly Harrison, Dan White, and Mary Sutton came together and the journal quickly expanded to include book reviews, novel excerpts, creative nonfiction, contests, regular interviews, and visual poetics and began to publish quarterly. While there is a small contingent of individuals in Charlotte, the majority of staff are scattered across the U.S.
After successfully growing and building their journal audience, a core group of West Trade editors decided that the next logical step was to continue that growth together as a press, Iron Oak Editions, and to begin publication of novels, short story collections, poetry collections, and nonfiction memoir. Iron Oak Editions first opened for submissions in January of 2024.
© 2016 West Trade Review
Founder and Editor: Ken R.Harmon
Ken R. Harmon is a queer writer who lives in Charlotte. He completed an M.A. in English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and completed doctoral coursework and research in Literature and Literary Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He taught college writing and literature for 23 years. He is editor and founder of West Trade Review and founder and publisher of Iron Oak Editions, and Executive Director of Iron Oak Literary. His work has recently appeared in Humana Obscura and Montana Mouthful, and he edited the anthology Ecobloomspaces: Poetry at the Intersection of Nature, Environment, and Place. He also co-edited the creative nonfiction anthology A Brand New Word in the End Drops Out: Personal Stories of Mental Health and Mental Wellness with D.W. White.
C0-Managing Editor: A.E. Abitz
A.E. Abitz previously served as Art Director and Print Editor of Redivider, where she worked across editorial, design, and production for the journal’s print and online issues. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Poets.org, Tar River Poetry, Mom Egg Review, and The Dewdrop, among others. Her awards and recognitions include an Academy of American Poets College Prize and a Writers’ Room of Boston Poetry Fellowship. Abitz holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her editorial and creative work is particularly interested in formally adventurous writing and in creating space for emerging voices whose work challenges conventional expectations of poetry.
Co-Managing Editor: Shirley Dees
Shirley Dees earned an MFA from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Bangalore Review, Bright Flash Literary, and other publications. Shirley read for both The Louisville Review and Good River Review and worked as a publishing Assistant with WTAW Press before joining West Trade Review as an Associate Prose Editor in April of 2025. When not working in the literary landscape, she is busy volunteering for her local school district’s education foundation and other non-profit organizations, parenting, and reading beneath the shade of centuries-old oak trees.
Prose Editor: Dan White
Dan White is the Prose Editor of West Trade Review, a role he's held since 2020. He is also the Founding Editor of L’Esprit Literary Review and Publisher of Indirect Books. Previously, he helped launch Iron Oak Editions and served as Director of Prose for two years, overseeing the first two prose projects released by IOE. His criticism and prose appear in 3:AM, Publishers Weekly, The Florida Review, New Critique, Necessary Fiction, Chicago Review of Books, and elsewhere. He received his Ph.D. from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois-Chicago and currently is a faculty member in the MFA Program at Roosevelt University as well as the Senior Marketing Lead for WTAW Press. His first book of criticism, Rachel Cusk and The Art of Narration, will be published in November by Indirect Books.
Associate Prose Editor: Michael Harper
Michael Harper has been an Associate Prose Editor at West Trade Review since 2024. Previously, he was the Fiction editor at Fugue Literary Journal. He received his MFA from the University of Idaho and an MA in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures from the Universität Wien. His work has appeared in literary journals such as Ninth Letter, Bat City Review, Terrain.org, Best Microfiction Anthology, The Los Angeles Review, and others. Over the past years, he has been awarded both a Hemingway and Writers in the Wild Fellowship. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at Northern New Mexico College, where he teaches creative writing and is the faculty advisor for the literary journal Trickster.
Associate Prose Editor: Melissa Goodnight
Melissa Goodnight has been an Associate Prose Editor for West Trade Review for four years. Previously she was an Editor for Ponder Review and has read for various contests, including the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Annual Firecracker Awards which aims to celebrate the books and magazines that make a significant contribution to our literary culture, as well as the publishers that strive to introduce underrepresented voices to readers far and wide. Her work has appeared in New Orleans Review, Sonora Review, and Moon City Review among others. She holds an MFA from Mississippi University for Women and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she was honored with the Anne R. Newman Graduate Student Award.
Associate Prose Editor: Kristin Crocker
Kristin R. Crocker is a Washington, D.C. based creative writer and educator. Her work has appeared in HerStry and Moon City Review. She previously worked with Blue Mesa Review and as a creative writing instructor for EmersonWRITES. She holds an MFA from Emerson College. Her work is centered on tackling the issues of familial dynamics, race, societal constrictions, and personal identity.
Associate Prose Editor: Alec Witthohn
Alec Witthohn (he/they) has been an Associate Prose Editor at West Trade Review since early 2026 . Prior to this he worked as a prose editor at Colorado Review and Copper Nickel, and was responsible for social media and online content at Colorado Review and The Center for Literary Publishing. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Luna Luna, Red Rock Review, and Rain Taxi, among others. They hold an MFA in Fiction from Colorado State University. As a queer writer concerned with place, identity, and the environment, celebrating underrepresented voices is a core focus of Alec's work both as a writer and an editor.
Associate Prose Editor: Filiz Turhan
FilizTurhan has served as an Associate Prose editor for West Trade Review since January 2026. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Sonora Review, The Threepenny Review, The North American Review, The Citron Review and elsewhere. She is also the author of The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire (Routledge Publishing), as well as book chapters from presses including Liverpool UP and Cambridge UP. She holds a PhD in English Romanticism from New York University and has served as a professor of English at SUNY Suffolk Community College for twenty-five years, where she teaches Contemporary Global Literature. Finally, Filiz was a 2020 recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Faculty Service. In her creative work, academic writings, teaching, college service, and work with West Trade Review, Filiz foregrounds her commitment to the principles and practice of Justice diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Poetry Editor: Allisa Cherry
Allisa Cherry serves as the Poetry Editor at West Trade Review, a role assumed after more than two years as an Associate Poetry Editor for the journal. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University and is the author of An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press), which earned the 2024 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize through the RCAH Center for Poetry. Her collection was also recognized as a finalist for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize and longlisted for the Balcones and Julie Suk awards. Her poems have recently appeared in Northwest Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, and The Penn Review. Based in Oregon, Cherry works with immigrants and refugees as they connect to educational pathways and community resources while transitioning to life in the United States. This grounding in community advocacy enriches her editorial vision. Her daily focus on equity, access, and opportunity organically aligns with West Trade Review’s core mission of elevating both established and emerging poets, uplifting underrepresented perspectives, and publishing honest and complex work that takes great risks to surface truth.
Associate Poetry Editor: Claire Jusell
Claire Jussel has served as an Associate Poetry Editor at West Trade Review since 2021. She received her MFA in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University, where she also served as Poetry Editor and Assistant Visual Arts Editor for Flyway Journal, taught undergraduate courses in composition and creative writing, and received the Pearl Hogrefe Award in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in journals such as Midwest Review, SEISMA, and Split Rock Review. She is an assistant editor for the Iowa Field Guides project and has been a writer in residence at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, Shake Rag Center for the Arts, and Cove Park. As an editor, she loves encountering poems that illuminate and magnify facets of our world and the language used to shape it.
Associate Poetry Editor: Angelina Leaños
Angelina Leaños is a Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate emerita and earned her MFA. from Fresno State. Leaños has received poetry prizes from Blastbones Zine, Arkana, and California Lutheran University. In 2026, she was the inaugural recipient of the Four Palaces Publishing Writing Residency. Leaños is a member of the California Poets in the Schools’ Board of Directors. Her poems have been published by Fruitslice, Urban Word, Flowersong Press, Poetry Daily, and more.
Associate Poetry Editor: Sarah Lilius
Sarah Lilius is the author of the full-length book of poems, Dirty Words (Indie Blu(e), 2021) and six poetry chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Boulevard, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. She is excited to have found a place on the West Trade Review team where she can work with other like-minded editors and readers to find new voices.
Associate Poetry Editor: Matthew Whitehouse
Matthew Whitehouse began working as an Associate Poetry Editor at West Trade Review in 2026. He holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from Pacific University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. He currently works as an educator, which has included partnering with programs connecting people with local agriculture, collaborating with organizations combating food insecurity, and developing trips promoting environmental stewardship. He currently lives in the Northwest. When not immersed in writing and editing ecosystems, he can be found hiking or exploring the Oregon coast.
Associate Poetry Editor: Christopher McCormick
Christopher McCormick is a poet from Ohio. His work appears in Atlanta Review, Harpur Palate, and The Maine Review among numerous other publications. He received his MFA in creative writing from Bowling Green State University where he worked as an assistant editor for Mid-American Review. He is a former reader for Beaver Magazine. His book reviews can be found in Mid-American Review and CALYX. He teaches in the English department at Ohio Northern University.
Reviews Editor: Eliza Marley
Eliza Marley is a Chicago-based folklorist and fiction writer. She is the author of the book, You Shouldn't Worry About the Frogs, published by Querencia Press in 2023. Her work has been featured in Red Ogre Review, Novus Lit, and Stoneboat Journal among others. She is a third year PhD student at the University of Illinois Chicago where she collects and studies ghost stories and climate literature, interested in how haunted places are formed. She can often be found haunting the Chicago River herself in a kayak.
Book Design: Claudia Sanchez
Art Editor & Webmaster: Ken Harmon
Website Assistants: Samuel Argueta and Serenity Ritchey
Audio Exclusives: Natalie Brault and Lindzey Jacoby
Social Media Manager: Celia Austin
Social Media Team: Samuel Argueta, Savannah Jones, AnneMarie Miles, Iris French, and Ryan Cheffet
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Photo by Dominic Sansotta
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