Switchback Books

25/10/2025

Allow us to to introduce ourselves…

Alyse Knorr and Kate Partridge have passed the reins for Switchback Books to the four of us and we couldn’t be more honored. We’re thrilled to continue running a press each of us has some connection to, and thrilled for the journey ahead. We want to extend a huge thank you to Alyse, Kate, and every editor before us!

Sincerely,
Marina, Mackenzie, Becca, and Rachel

20/10/2025

Congratulations to all the finalists for this year’s Gatewood Prize! We read so many great manuscripts and appreciate everyone who submitted. Thank you for sharing your work with us, and huge thanks again to guest judge Ae Hee Lee!

10/10/2025

We are thrilled to announce the winner of the 2025 Gatewood Prize, as selected by guest judge Ae Hee Lee, is “Voyage: Happening in an Egg” by Pearl McHugh!

Pearl McHugh is a gardener and florist living in New Orleans. She is a proud Lambda Literary Fellow and graduate of the University of New Orleans MFA program. This is her first book.

Congratulations, Pearl! Thank you to everyone who submitted to the Gatewood Prize—we read so many great manuscripts, and will release the short list soon to celebrate the finalists.

19/06/2025

The latest title from Switchback Books, Rachel Jihye Han’s “I AM RETURNING FOR THE BODY,” is now available for purchase at switchbackbooks.com. Winner of the 2024 Gatewood Prize, I AM RETURNING FOR THE BODY explores and maps liminal experiences—the posthuman, hybridity and diaspora, the afterlife, and the uncertainties of our real and imagined dystopias—through work that pushes genre boundaries and interweaves the primordial and futuristic, documentarian and autobiographical, narrative and musical, and sacred and profane. Through a pentaptych structure, these poems illuminate the pathways we may uncover as we press deeper into the dark—fashioning beings of metal, electricity, and light, only to return home to ourselves, to the softness of the body. Questions which arise are: How do we protect what is sacred to us through this new dark? What do we carry with us through the fires, and how do we carry it so it does not burn? There is alchemy in this process of searching. Perhaps along the way, we may find that paradise was always a myth—but that there is something much stranger and much more hopeful waiting for us on the other side.

01/05/2025

Thank you and Jami Macarty for this beautiful review of .day.gray ‘s earthwork!

01/04/2025

You've still got time! (Whew.) We're extending this year's Gatewood Prize deadline until April 15th, and can't wait to read your work.

The Gatewood Prize is Switchback Books’ annual competition for a first or second full-length collection of poems by a woman. It is named after Emma Gatewood, the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

25/03/2025

The off-site event you’ve been looking for. This Thursday. Be there or be not having as much fun as you could be.

25/03/2025

Mark your calendars!! Coming to an AWP near yoi this Friday.

25/03/2025

AWP attendees! Come to this unbelievable sale and signing of our newest title. Yay!!

07/03/2025

Good news! There are still three weeks left to submit your manuscripts to the 2025 Gatewood Prize. We look forward to reading your work!

The Gatewood Prize is Switchback Books’ annual competition for a first or second full-length collection of poems by a woman. It is named after Emma Gatewood, the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

02/01/2025

It's that time! The Gatewood Prize is open for submissions, and we are eager to read your first/second poetry book manuscripts. This year's judge is Ae Hee Lee! https://switchbackbooks.submittable.com/submit

22/10/2024