Switch Wish

Author: Willy Smart

Publisher: Meekling Press (2020)

An erotic novel in disguise, Willy Smart's Switch Wish dwells in the tension between pause and play. From water striders and spiders to webs, stems, and stalks—the natural world abounds and is amplified through this narrator's attention which moves via associative flow, inquiring into the power of spells, names, and their role in transformation.

"Like all my favorite art, Switch Wish resists easy summary. If there is a scene it's a simple one. A body half immersed in water, daydreaming at the threshold between wet and dry. We meet them again and again, sinking and floating, sometimes in a lake, sometimes in a bath. But that's not it. The book resists. Smart's magic is how they build up associations while maintaining simplicity. How they entwine homonyms, and show how words and sensations coat one another, like mud does fingers, or gloss does lips. Read this to be resensitized to the erotics of everyday life. Give it to your crush. They won't be able to pin down what you're suggesting, but they'll be enamored by the sensations these words transmit."

–Joni Murphy

"We often forget that erotics can extend not only to other human bodies but into the world of things and non-human creatures. Willy Smart's Switch Wish is a welcome reminder, offering us a vivid account of the layered sensuality of their relations with plants, animals, and objects."

–Gordon Hall