Catapult

Cover Photo: A photograph of a sign in a front yard in front of a green bush. The sign says, in bold white all-caps text on a red background, "Wear a damn mask."

Columns | Unreal Estates

In This House We Believe

I don’t believe that signs are enough, because the claims of the house are empty without the actions of the people in them.

Beth Boyle Machlan

Oct 04, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of four people around a table, smiling and clinking glasses over a spread of food.

Catapult | What's The Word

Translating for My Friends Is My Love Language

Whenever I travel, I make a point to speak the local language as much as possible.

Sep 28, 2022

Cover Photo: An image of the author and a translation next to her

Catapult | What's The Word

Beginning to Write in Wazhazhe ie

I dream of raising a child with Wazhazhe ie as their first language.

Chelsea T. Hicks

Sep 28, 2022

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: Tara Campbell, 12-Week Speculative Fiction Intensive: Revising Reality, Fiction, Intensive

Online | Fiction | Intensive

12-Week Speculative Fiction Intensive: Revising Reality

Catapult online classes: Rachel Vorona Cote, 6-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing for Public Discourse, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Nonfiction | Seminar

6-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing for Public Discourse

Rachel Vorona Cote

Catapult online classes: Bruna Dantas Lobato, 6-Week Open-Genre Workshop: Publishing Translations, Fiction, Translation, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Translation | Workshop

6-Week Open-Genre Workshop: Publishing Translations

Bruna Dantas Lobato

Catapult online classes: Frances Badalamenti , 8-Week Fiction Workshop: The Study & Practice of Autofiction, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

8-Week Fiction Workshop: The Study & Practice of Autofiction

Frances Badalamenti

Catapult online classes: Rachel Kincaid, 3-Week Nonfiction Seminar: Theory & Practices of Exploratory Writing, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Nonfiction | Seminar

3-Week Nonfiction Seminar: Theory & Practices of Exploratory Writing

Catapult online classes: Lee Cole, 6-Week Fiction Workshop: Writing About Place, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Fiction Workshop: Writing About Place

Catapult online classes: Krys Malcolm Belc, 6-Week Generative Nonfiction Workshop: Writing & Revising Linked Flash Essays, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

6-Week Generative Nonfiction Workshop: Writing & Revising Linked Flash Essays

Krys Malcolm Belc

Catapult online classes: Julia Phillips, 4-Week Fiction Seminar: Structuring Your Story, Fiction, Seminar

Online | Fiction | Seminar

4-Week Fiction Seminar: Structuring Your Story

What’s the Word

Cover Photo: This image shows phases of the moon, a full moon on the left moving through six distinct phases, with a fingernail of a moon on the far right. The moons all share the same yellowish orange glow against a black starless background, as if in the dead of night.

Don’t Write Alone | Toolkit

I’m Living in the Poems I Can’t Yet Write

How does one translate life into poetry, especially in seasons of total depletion?

Natasha Oladokun

Sep 26, 2022

Cover Photo: This is a black and white photograph of the beach. In the foreground, there is a book open in the sand. In the background is the horizon of the ocean.

Don’t Write Alone | Notes On Craft

What Translators Mean When We Talk about Reading

Make sure you save a little of the “joy of discovery” for the actual translation process by not reading your source text too closely before translating it.

Sep 29, 2022

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a person in a dress standing on top of a grassy hill, the sky behind them a bright blue. They are holding an old, worn traveling case in one hand.

Don’t Write Alone | Writing Life

Translated Self

Portuguese was my first language, but it was quickly followed by English. To this day, I have the impression that when I speak in English, I bury bits of myself in the process.

Elisa Wouk Almino

Sep 27, 2022

Arts & Culture

Cover Photo: A photograph of two people grappling on a mat in an indoor arena. Around them are blurred spectators.

Every Queer Person Should Learn How to Fight

Cover Photo: A screenshot from the sitcom 'Friends,' in which the core cast members are joined by Brad Pitt as they sit inside a fancy Manhattan apartment and talk.

The One With the Offensive Joke About Intersex People

Cover Photo: Photograph by Shahzin Shajid/Unsplash

Legolas Bends the Space-Time Continuum

Jami Nakamura Lin

Craft Books from Catapult

Catapult | Creative Writing | Criticism | Reference

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison

Catapult | nonfiction

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

Catapult

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Catapult | short stories

Best Debut Short Stories 2022 edited by Yuka Igarashi and Sarah Lyn Rogers

Columns

Cover Photo: A photograph of an hourglass in a wooden frame on a white table in front of a white painted brick wall.

Columns | Mother Of All Messes

Watching the Clock: On Parenting in the Climate Crisis

I practice thinking about time like a geologist, but, mostly, I can manage only to think about it like a mother.

Sep 19, 2022

Cover Photo: Two side-by-side photographs of the writer, Tabitha Blankenbiller, in Paris. On the left she is posing with a man in a uniform. On the right she is posing in the street in front of the Eiffel Tower. In both photos she is wearing a black collared dress with a white print of the Eiffel Tower.

Columns | Hemlines

In a World of Impermanence, I’ll Always Have Paris

I have never felt further from a former version of myself as I do now, here, today.

Tabitha Blankenbiller

Sep 14, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of caprese salad on a grey plate, shot from above. Large slices of tomato are arranged with torn hunks of fresh mozzarella and scattered basil leaves.

Columns | Minced Words

As a Disabled Cook, I Need Adaptable Recipes

When it comes to food prep, I have to be honest with myself about what I’m capable of—and, more importantly, what I’m not.

Gabrielle Drolet

Sep 06, 2022

Places

Cover Photo: Photograph by Ryan Nicoll/Unsplash

The False Comfort of the ’80s Suburban Lawn

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a dirty bar bathroom covered in stickers, lit in a dingy yet comforting yellow light.

Always Check the Bathrooms

Cover Photo: Photograph by No Revisions/Unsplash

Save a Life, Drink Outside

Joseph Osmundson

Poetry

Cover Photo: This photograph looks through golden grasses in a prairie as the sun sets, washing the field in orange light.

Catapult | Poetry

RATIONING SWEETGRASS

a steadfast soul-birth, tried and true / this is where you sing creation into being

Sep 22, 2022

Cover Photo: Photograph by Lucia Macedo/okeykat/Unsplash

Catapult | Poetry

Complicit Poem

When was the last time you chose / a glass of pinot over fair pay?

Sep 13, 2022

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Catapult | Poetry

GET FUCKED & DIE! Poetica

Though, no man can disappoint me / as much as the body I was / born into. Kidding, obvi. I’m Chilling!

Aug 30, 2022

Fiction

Cover Photo: An image of two silhouettes about to kiss

Fiction | Flash

A Lesson

Neither of you knew that your night together would smash everything.

Meredith Talusan

Sep 23, 2022

Cover Photo: An illustration of an immaculately dressed older man wearing a straw pork-pie hat and smoking a cigarette in an old-fashioned holder. He is sitting in a garden between long, sculpted rows of lilac bushes.

Fiction | Short Story

The Benefactor

The bills were too thick to conceal in my pocket, so I reached inside my briefs and hid them there.

Sep 16, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows a man peering into the blue light in the fridge at a woman draped in scrambled eggs. She is surrounded by milk bottles and fruits and other foodstuffs one might find in the fridge.

Fiction | Short Story

Egg Mother

“I’m staging an intervention,” my husband says. “I miss my wife. I can’t be married to scrambled eggs anymore. You have to see a therapist.”

Sep 09, 2022