Catapult

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a lone woman standing at the base of a waterfall. Cliffs rise up around her and beams of sunlight cut through the mist rising from the water around her.

Places | People | Strange Friendships

On Hiking Alone

Here is my official statement on why I do most things alone: I am a lone wolf. I am comfortable with myself. Here is another explanation: There is something about me that is fundamentally unlikeable.

May 24, 2022

Cover Photo: This is a black and white illustration of a moon rising over on an ocean horizon. In the sky are a set of eyes with long eyelashes. The moon is below eyes where a nose would be. There is test on the illustration that reads, "My Mother, My Ex, and Facial Feminization Surgery: A Comic by Zefyr Lisowski.

My Mother, My Ex, and Facial Feminization Surgery: A Comic

I believe so strongly in the beauty and autonomy of body transformation, but I’m worried that will erase the small visible echoes of my (and my mother’s) history of survival.

May 23, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of Liz Phair on the cover of one of her albums. She is sitting on the ground with a guitar propped up against her chest and her arms rapped around it. Her head is tilted to the side and her long blonde hair is falling across her face.

Columns | Everyone Is Gay

Liz Phair Showed Me the Kind of Woman I Wanted to Be

As I was learning to say with confidence that I was a woman, I struggled to understand what that meant to me.

May 23, 2022

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: S. Brook Corfman, 5-Week Online Workshop: Understanding the Prose Poem, Poetry, Workshop

Online | Poetry | Workshop

5-Week Online Workshop: Understanding the Prose Poem

S. Brook Corfman

Catapult online classes: Julie Kliegman, 1-Day Open-Genre Seminar: Think Like a Copy Editor, Open-Genre, Seminar

Online | Open-Genre | Seminar

1-Day Open-Genre Seminar: Think Like a Copy Editor

Catapult online classes: Karen E. Bender, 2-Day Fiction Intensive: Finding Your Story, Fiction, Intensive

Online | Fiction | Intensive

2-Day Fiction Intensive: Finding Your Story

Karen E. Bender

Catapult online classes: Carolyn Kellogg, 4-Week Fiction Seminar: Reading as a Critic, Fiction, Seminar

Online | Fiction | Seminar

4-Week Fiction Seminar: Reading as a Critic

Carolyn Kellogg

Catapult online classes: Hubert Adjei-Kontoh, 4 Weeks of Reading as Writers: The Black Expatriate Tradition, Fiction, Nonfiction, Reading Group

Online | Fiction, Nonfiction | Reading Group

4 Weeks of Reading as Writers: The Black Expatriate Tradition

Hubert Adjei-Kontoh

Catapult online classes: Gauri Awasthi, 5-Week Poetry Workshop: Decolonizing Poetry, Poetry, Workshop

Online | Poetry | Workshop

5-Week Poetry Workshop: Decolonizing Poetry

Catapult online classes: Megan Milks, 4-Week Generative Prose Workshop: Experiments in Point of View, Fiction, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Nonfiction | Workshop

4-Week Generative Prose Workshop: Experiments in Point of View

Catapult online classes: Danielle Lazarin, 2-Week Prose Seminar: Your Writing Practice Beyond Word Count & Workshop, Fiction, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Fiction, Nonfiction | Seminar

2-Week Prose Seminar: Your Writing Practice Beyond Word Count & Workshop

Danielle Lazarin

Don’t Write Alone

Cover Photo: This image shows a grid of green lines and black squares being projected onto a person who is standing with their back up against a wall. We can't see any details on their face--it's as if they are wearing a face covering. The green and the black grid covers everything and has an air of intrigue

Don’t Write Alone | Notes On Craft

Writing Social Media Into Fiction

Social media is often portrayed as the enemy of the writer—but like any good enemy, perhaps it’s best to keep it close. Don’t miss this craft essay by Isle McElroy for our Social Media Week series.

Apr 26, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Shop Talk

How BookTok Is Changing Publishing

For our Social Media Week series, Cecilia Beard explains how BookTok makes it possible for people outside the traditional delineation of the publishing industry to propel any book to success.

Apr 27, 2022

Cover Photo: An illustration of the author painting on different social media platforms as if they were canvases

Don’t Write Alone | Writing Life

TLDR; I Tweeted Myself Into a Career and Now I’m Stuck Online

As part of our Social Media Week series, Leah Johnson writes about using social media to connect with her readers and how she engages online as a recreation rather than an obligation.

Apr 27, 2022

Arts & Culture

Cover Photo: Screenshots via @tarasfarmtotable/TikTok

How Lunchbox TikTok Is Healing My Relationship With Food

Camille Beredjick

Cover Photo: An illustration of a trans person running shirtless—their top surgery scars just visible, glowing—as the sun rises, breaking the cover of night

On Running Shirtless While Trans

Cover Photo: Photograph by Kaleb Nimz/Unsplash

Finding Salvation in Death Cab for Cutie

New from Catapult Books

Catapult | memoir

Made in China by Anna Qu

Catapult | memoir

Now Beacon, Now Sea: A Son's Memoir by Christopher Sorrentino

Catapult | fiction

Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor

Catapult | nonfiction

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

Catapult | fiction

Best Debut Short Stories 2021: The PEN America Dau Prize edited by Yuka Igarashi and Sarah Lyn Rogers

Catapult | short stories

Catapult | fiction

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

Catapult | fiction

The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore

Columns

Cover Photo: An aerial photograph of a wooden cutting board. On the left side is a grey dish towel and on the board are chopped yellow peppers, green onions, and a knife.

Columns | Minced Words

Unlearning the Ableism of Cookbooks and Kitchen Wisdom

When I developed nerve problems in my hands, so much of what we do in the kitchen was suddenly inaccessible to me.

Gabrielle Drolet

May 19, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of a small vine in a vineyard, buried in dry-looking light brown soil. In the background, the sky is dark and filled with clouds.

Columns | Through The Grapevine

Working on a Vineyard Taught Me to Slow Down and Pay Attention

We had no sense of “ecological time,” the cadence of the natural environment. Mostly, I experienced the natural world as lack.

May 12, 2022

Cover Photo: An image of the author's mother

Columns | What Doesn't Translate

How Untranslatable Words Have Connected Me to My Mother

“In Cantonese,” my mother says, “love isn’t so frivolous.”

May 04, 2022

Places

Cover Photo: a photograph of a coyote, silhouetted agains the blue and pink sky, at dusk or perhaps dawn

The Coyotes in the HOA

Cover Photo: Photograph by Jason Leung/Unsplash

Why Are “Good” College-Application Essays So Awful to Read?

Cover Photo: This image shows the painting above the Angel's Share bar, which has a baby sitting on a red crescent moon. He has horns on his black hair and a devilish look in his eyes.

A Final Kampai for Angel’s Share, My Favorite Bar in New York

Stella Cabot Wilson

Poetry

Cover Photo: This illustration shows an apartment complex detailed like you are looking at the backside of a dollhouse and cut out of black paper. We see various scenes going on in different rooms, but in particular one apartment shows people having sex, while the apartment below it is being banged and rattled around

Catapult | Poetry

Intellectual Property as a Result

recently I signed a contract / which stipulates anything / I conceive of as a result / of the job belongs to the job

Mar 29, 2022

Cover Photo: This photograph is a close up image of a shiny, orange clam, it's hinges open to the delicate sunshine that reflects off its shell and the wet sand beneath it.

Catapult | Poetry

Laying Down the Groundwork

When I got up before anyone else / I took the heavy clams from the fridge / and put them in a bowl of cool water.

Feb 25, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows two brown hands holding a collection of green gems--some are cut to look as if they are sparkling, others show old Spanish newspaper clippings. In the facets of one gem, we seem men holding up guns and pointing them toward the sky.

Catapult | Poetry

Pepe

when his niece asks / tell me about Chía, the answer is always just: it’s a long story / but I think what you’re telling me, is that language is an inadequate grieving

Feb 16, 2022

Fiction

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Fiction | Flash

You Told Me No One Wants to Hear This Story

I remember when they told us to get off the plane, though I have tried to forget it because you said it was not a story.

Aasiya Mirza Glover

May 20, 2022

Cover Photo: An illustration of two women holding hands walking along a 3D crossword puzzle as if crossing a bridge

Fiction | Short Story

Cipher

2-Down: ______ Stewart, queer actress you feel like you should be attracted to but aren’t.

May 13, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows a woman lying on the floor next to a dog. There are cardboard boxes scattered all around them. We are looking down at them from above, and there are bright spots shining above them as well, as if we are looking at them through a lightly starry sky.

Fiction | Short Story

A Dog Is Not the Answer

Alicia only meant to bring newfound meaning to her bedraggled life, hoping her memories and grief would be blunted by the comfort of another living creature.

May 06, 2022