Announcing new Contest Editors

Due to unforeseen circumstances surrounding this year's contest, we are bringing aboard two new contest editors, Addie Palin and Melissa Severin, to help with the 2007 Gatewood Prize. I have known both women for several years now and have the utmost confidence in their abilities as editors. Welcome aboard, guys!


Addie Palin moved to Chicago after receiving her MFA from the University of Montana in 2004, where she was a recipient of the Richard Hugo Memorial Scholarship. She has had poems published in Faultline and Kalliope, and was a 2005 finalist for the Univeristy of Arizona Poetry Center Summer Residency Contest. She is currently working for a small Chicago advertising agency while finishing work on her manuscript, The Cautery.





Melissa Severin lives in Chicago and works in search engine marketing. She earned her MFA in Poetry from New England College and her poems have appeared in MoonLit, The Alembic, and The Cultural Society. For the curious, she doesn't have a "dream job." Melissa realized at a young age that her dreams do not involve jobs, but she might like to open a bar in the Pacific Northwest. Brute Fact, her forthcoming chapbook, will be out in February from dancing girl press.

Photo credit: Ian Whitmore.




Readers for the contest also include Daniela Olszewska, Elizabeth Metzger Sampson, Jess Rose, Erica Adams, Rachel Finkelstein, and myself. At least three different individuals review every contest entry. Switchback editors are responsible for selecting the ten finalists to pass on to the 2007 judge, Patty Seyburn. If any contest entrant has questions, please contact me directly at brandi@switchbackbooks.com.

All best, and stay warm,
Brandi