Switchback Books
Can a feminist poetry press based in the Midwest survive? The founding editors of Switchback explain how it works
By Kate Rockwood
Published: May 30th, 2007 | 11:23am
Starting an independent, feminist publishing house in the Midwest may not seem like the surest business model, but having that press concentrate solely on poetry sounds like the kiss of death. The editors of Switchback Books, Chicago’s only feminist press, didn’t let that stop them from setting up shop in the Windy City, or using the f-word.
“There is that notion that the cards will be stacked against you if you carve yourself out a niche this defined,” says Hanna Andrews, one of Switchback Books’ three founding editors. “But we all felt that it [is] the best possible way to describe ourselves, and all three of us do have a really strong kind of feminist politic. Anybody who wouldn’t want to publish under a feminist label, maybe they can go somewhere else.”
Brandi Homan, Becca Klaver, and Hanna Andrews met in the poetry graduate program at Columbia College in Chicago. When Joyelle McSweeney of Action Books gave a speech on campus about starting a small press, Homan pounced on the idea.
In part, she says, her motivation was rooted in a desire to give back to the community of women writers that had fostered her as a young poet. When Homan joined an all-women writing group that was founded by Chicago poet Simone Muench in 2003, she went from having no one to talk about her writing with to being surrounded by diverse women of all ages and backgrounds who enjoyed discussing her work and writing, she says.
“Most importantly, though, [the group] provided the emotional support that I think poets need, providing reassurance that no, you’re not crazy for writing these little things that not a lot of people care about in general,” Homan says.
And so Homan, Andrews, and Klaver set aside any self-doubts and plunged into the realm of publishing.
“We wanted to be a space in the writing community nationally [for] women whose voices may be a little on the fringe or a bit unexpected or might not be easily grasped or pinned down by critics,” Andrews says.
Which may be why the editors selected New York–based poet Monica de la Torre as the press’s first poet to publish. “She’s hard to place,” Andrews says of de la Torre. “She’s like the poet with bed head. She just came out from the underground with all this stuff to say.”
Switchback Books queried de la Torre out of the blue, not even knowing if she had a manuscript available.
“Not only is she a PhD candidate at Columbia [University], she’s the editor of a lit mag in Brooklyn. Should we, this fledging operation, just query her and ask to see her work? Of course,” Andrews says.
The editors also worked feverishly to nail down the business details and invited established poets to join their advisory board, eventually pulling together a kick-ass team of mentors, including Joan Larkin, Arielle Greenberg, and Denise Duhamel.
“I think there was this moment when we all did look at each other and say, ‘Yeah, we’re actually doing this. There’s no looking back,’” Andrews says. “If we’re doing this, we’re jumping in headfirst.”
During the last year, the Switchback editors have been in almost constant communication with de la Torre and each other. The press staff swelled to include a fourth editor, Kristin Aardsma, as well as editorial assistants, interns, and a design team, which is all part of the master plan to draw more people into the local poet community, according to Homan.
“We each bring our own strengths, aesthetics, and interests to the table, [but] we’re pretty democratic in how we make decisions,” Homan says. Hum-drum operations may get divvied up — Andrews handles the press, Klaver writes correspondence, Aardsma tackles special projects like chapbooks and handmade books, and Homan handles the bulk of day-to-day operations — but when it comes to editing, the process is pure collaboration, from reading pow-wows to frequent votes over what to table and what to move forward.
The result: a tightly edited, stand-out debut, Talk Shows
With one book on the shelves, a second called Our Classical Heritage: A Homing Device
Issue #36
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