WestWord is a literary magazine from Retreat West publishing great micro fictions, flash fictions and short stories.
We have a team of readers and editors who read all the submissions and provide feedback on stories.
We publish themed editions and anthologies of winning stories from the WestWord Prize and competitions.
There are also three opportunities for stand-alone stories to be featured that are open for submissions ongoing:
WestWord Team
Amanda Saint
Founder and Managing Editor
Amanda is the author of two novels, As If I Were A River (2016) and Remember Tomorrow (2019) and a novella-in-flash, Pressure Drop (2024). Her short stories, flash and micro fictions have been widely published in journals and anthologies, and placed and listed in many international prizes, including the Mslexia Flash Fiction Prize and the Fish Flash Fiction Prize, nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023, and twice selected for Top in Fiction in 2024. Amanda founded and runs Retreat West, providing an online writing community, competitions and courses. From 2018-2023 Retreat West published 24 books and was named Most Innovative Publisher at the 2020 Saboteur Awards (shortlisted 2019). She also writes The Mindful Writer here on Substack and in 2024, launched a new creative venture inspired by it. Find out more here.
Joanna Campbell
Reader and Feedback Editor
Joanna Campbell's short stories are published in numerous anthologies, have won first prize in the Exeter Writers competition, London Short Story Prize, Magic Oxygen Literary Prize, Retreat West Short Story Prize, and were shortlisted twice for the Bristol Prize. Her short story collection, When Planets Slip Their Tracks, was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill University Prize.
Her flash fiction came second in the 2017 Bridport Prize, for which her short stories have been shortlisted many times. Her first novella-in-flash, A Safer Way to Fall, was runner-up in the inaugural Bath Flash Fiction Award and her second, Sybilla, won the National Flash Fiction Day Award. Her two published novels are Tying Down the Lion and Instructions for the Working Day, which was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and, in August 2022, for The Independent's Book of the Month.
Joanna reads submissions and provides feedback for the Monthly Micro competition.
Emma Finlayson-Palmer
Reader and Feedback Editor
Emma Finlayson-Palmer is a working class, autistic writer and artist who lives in the West Midlands with her husband and a multitude of children, cats, and chickens. Author of the Autumn Moonbeam chapter book series, Mega Merle and the Mega Mystery, and various short stories and flash fiction. Emma runs #ukteenchat, a writing themed chat on Twitter, and is an editor and mentor of children’s fiction, as well as a reader for writing competitions. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found painting, watching birds or wandering around graveyards, often all three simultaneously.
Emma reads submissions and provides feedback for the Monthly Micro competition.
Salena Casha
Reader
Salena Casha's work has appeared in over 100 publications in the last decade. Her most recent pieces can be found on HAD, Carmina Magazine, and Club Plum. She has been nominated for BSF, BoTN, and the Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Wigleaf's Top 50 short stories. She survives New England winters on good beer and black coffee. Subscribe to her Substack at salenacasha.substack.com
Salena reads submissions for the themed editions and the WestWord Prize.
Kevin Morris
Reader
Kevin is a retired US Marine. During his military career he served in Japan, southeast Asia, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Europe. Since retirement, he works in the defense industry. In 2020 he followed a lifelong dream and enrolled in a creative writing program, earning his MFA from Arcadia University in 2022. Passionate about veterans affairs and well being, his thesis science fiction novel portrayed characters dealing with combat related PTSD, something he believes needs attention within the science fiction genre, both print and screen. Kevin is active within the Arcadia alumni community, taking part in writing groups featuring editing and feedback from short stories all the way to novellas. He has also worked as a thesis reviewer for subsequent MFA students at Arcadia, and was the lead fiction editor for the online journal, Cosmic Double.
Now residing north of San Diego, Kevin writes while actively building his writing community. His story, The Castle, appears in WestWord. When not writing, you can find him at a local Comic Con, cooking for his grown children that seem to show up exactly at dinner time, or traveling with the very patient love of his life.
Kevin reads submissions for the competitions.
Mary Thompson
Reader
Mary Thompson is an English teacher from Brighton (UK). Her short fiction has appeared in many journals and placed in competitions. In 2020 she won a BIFFY 50 award and her work was featured in Best Microfiction, and in 2021, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been on a submission hiatus for a while but is currently working on a novella-in-flash. Mary tweets at @MaryRuth69.
Mary reads submissions for the competitions.
Jamie D. Stacey
Feedback Editor
Jamie D. Stacey is a full-time father and part-time writer. An avid reader of scratches on walls and scribbles in notebooks, he is drawn to stories that empathise, encourage, and empower. His debut novel, All the Waves, Calling (Black Pear Press, 2023), explores themes of loss, loneliness - and hope. Whether he writes very short stories or novels, whatever the form or shape it’s the heart and hope inside each that matters. Find him on Twitter @JamieDStacey1 or www.jamiedstacey.co.uk.
After two years as a reader for WestWord, Jamie now provides feedback on the submissions we receive.
