Catapult

Cover Photo: An image of someone standing on the sink looking at their reflection of their body in the mirror.

Catapult | Poetry

Mirror Stage

We remember how hard it has always been to see our body.

Miles A.M. Collins-Sibley

Jan 26, 2021

Cover Photo: In this illustration, we see an outline of a woman sitting in a wheel chair. Her hand is lifted to her forehead, as if she is looking far off in the distance. Her shadow stretches beneath her. The background is an organic-looking pattern in browns, pinks, whites, and off-whites.

Things | Family | Heirloom

In the Shadow of Saris: Exploring Identity Through Memory and Dislocation

It was only after I left a home where there were many women who might have helped me—not only with dressing in a sari but also with figuring out how to do it on my own—did I realize that the sari represented more than a cultural announcement.

Jan 26, 2021

Cover Photo: photograph of a gold-framed photograph of the author as a child, with his mother, on a shelf also containing a clock and a wooden jewelry box with a vase and framed art behind

Columns | Grief At A Distance

My Mother Lives Here Because I Live Here

It was the middle of a pandemic. Mom had just died of cancer. Why leave my home of four and a half years?

Jan 20, 2021

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: Taylor Larsen, 12-Week Online Novel Draft Generator, Novel, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Novel, Fiction | Workshop

12-Week Online Novel Draft Generator

Catapult online classes: Jean Kyoung Frazier, 8-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Finding Your Opening, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

8-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Finding Your Opening

Jean Kyoung Frazier

Catapult online classes: Anna Qu, 8-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Beyond the "Me" in Memoir, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

8-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Beyond the "Me" in Memoir

Catapult online classes: Sharlene Teo, 6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Building & Sustaining Emotional Suspense, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Building & Sustaining Emotional Suspense

Catapult online classes: Tabitha Blankenbiller, 6-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Writing The Pop Culture Essay, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Writing The Pop Culture Essay

Tabitha Blankenbiller

Catapult online classes: Anna Godbersen, 6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Writing Young Adult Fiction, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Writing Young Adult Fiction

Catapult online classes: Ariel Lewiton, 6-Week Online Open-Genre Generative Workshop: Finding New Forms, Open-Genre, Workshop

Online | Open-Genre | Workshop

6-Week Online Open-Genre Generative Workshop: Finding New Forms

Catapult online classes: Anna Dorn, 8-Week Online Novel Workshop, Fiction, Novel, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Novel | Workshop

8-Week Online Novel Workshop

On Writing

Cover Photo: An image from the film adaptation of The Hunger Games books: the protagonist Katniss standing among fires and rubble, looking distressed

On Writing | Shop Talk

On Worldbuilding and the Question of Resistance

In fiction, you can feel good about resistance without actually resisting anything.

Matthew Salesses

Jan 19, 2021

Cover Photo: An image of a type writer and hands typing as hot pink flames are ablaze in the background

People | On Writing | Debut

When There Is No Right Way to Heal

The details of those poems may be his first inkling that I know what he did.

Destiny Birdsong

Nov 12, 2020

Cover Photo: An image of a woman reading half of her face in a shadow as the light shines in through the window

Culture | On Writing | Turning Points

Finding an “I” in Indian Literature

It turns out all I want to find in literature, whether I write or read it, is a little piece of myself.

Sep 17, 2020

Notes From Class

Cover Photo: This photograph is mostly a bright blue sky with scattered white clouds. The bright green field below is only shown as a sliver, so the photo feels expansive as a sunny day

Writing Our Pandemic Stories: May & June

Catapult Classes

Cover Photo: This photograph is of a dog, a white pit bull mix, who is grinning happily into golden hour evening sun in a field of orange poppies

Writing Our Pandemic Stories: April & May

Catapult Classes

Cover Photo: In this photograph, a couple stands on the porch of a modest, square, brick family home. She wears a mask and he wears a bandana over his face. The grass is green, but the trees are bare in the background, as if spring has only just begun.

Writing Our Pandemic Stories: March & April

Catapult Classes

New from Catapult Books

memoir | Catapult

In the Country of Women: A Memoir by Susan Straight

fiction | Catapult

Black Card: A Novel by Chris L. Terry

memoir | Catapult

The Baddest Bitch in the Room: A Memoir by Sophia Chang

memoir | Catapult

Two Trees Make a Forest: In Search of My Family's Past Among Taiwan's Mountains and Coasts by Jessica J. Lee

fiction | Catapult

What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron

short stories | fiction | Catapult | anthology

Best Debut Short Stories 2020: The PEN America Dau Prize

fiction | Catapult

High as the Waters Rise: A Novel by Anja Kampmann, translated by Anne Posten

social science | Racism | nonfiction | Catapult

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

Columns

Cover Photo: the cast of the show 'Freaks and Geeks' in front of a row of orange lockers

Columns | Wander, Woman

Rewatching ‘Freaks and Geeks’ in a Polarized America

For all the pain, there is also beauty in the margins those outside of them may never understand.

Gabrielle Bellot

Jan 19, 2021

Cover Photo: An image of the farm simulator video game Stardew Valley; a farmer is picking melons from their farm, surrounded by trees, animals, and produce

Columns | Controller

How to Live Under Capitalism, According to ‘Stardew Valley’

‘Stardew Valley’ doesn’t challenge capitalism by trying to escape from it, but by teaching a lesson on generosity.

Jan 14, 2021

Cover Photo: Illustration by Cori Lin for Catapult

Columns | Family | The Monster In The Mirror

The Three Corpses

From the beginning, I knew that terror is a god. But now, I also believe that what might sound like a death rattle is merely the echo of ancestral song.

Jami Nakamura Lin

Jan 13, 2021

Wander, Woman

Cover Photo: the cast of the show 'Freaks and Geeks' in front of a row of orange lockers

Rewatching ‘Freaks and Geeks’ in a Polarized America

Gabrielle Bellot

Cover Photo: A Minneapolis mural and memorial honor George Floyd, killed by police on May 25, 2020. The mural is by artists Xena Goldman, Cadex Herrera, and Greta McLain. Flowers, candles, and signs left by mourners in the foreground.

Living in Dread of the Next Name We’ll Chant

Gabrielle Bellot

Cover Photo: image of a medieval plague doctor walking along a dirt road next to a lake blanketed in mist

Why Do We Read Plague Stories?

Gabrielle Bellot

Poetry

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Catapult | Poetry

Blood Moon

She is determined to follow the smoke—a hymn / for what’s gone missing.

Jan 12, 2021

Cover Photo: illustration of two men embracing under a Japanese maple tree in the foreground; behind them is a Nagoya street filled with shops and cafes and a shrine, with mountains in the distance

Catapult | Poetry

I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies

if you believe me to be your enemy know this I accept

Ryan Dzelzkalns

Jan 05, 2021

Cover Photo: A starry illustration of a woman looking up into the cosmos, nude, stripes from window blinds stretched across her body and into the universe.

Catapult | Poetry

First Nude

How to put this: I’m alive.

Shira Erlichman

Dec 14, 2020

Fiction

Cover Photo: An illustration in dark blues, black, and yellow. A ballerina is shown onstage, progressing through a spin. The glitter on her black leotard looks like stars against the background.

Fiction | Short Story

Rolling Blackouts

Social Security sends us checks every month to say sorry about our mom. A thousand sorries for me and a thousand sorries for Vivian, and we accept them all.

Melanie Carlstad

Jan 15, 2021

Cover Photo: illustration of a farmers market, with brightly colored tents in a line stretching into the distance; in the nearest tent, under a pink canvas, a woman in a blue shirt is selling microgreens to another woman in a black sunhat and long dress

Fiction | Short Story

Up and Out and Gone

They used to launch shuttles from the town, but that was all over now. Space had become derivative and unimportant and old.

Jan 08, 2021

Cover Photo: In this photograph, we see blue sky and white cottony clouds reflecting off a tall, glassy office building. The imagine is divided into a checkerboard because of the window frames.

Fiction | Short Story

Support Group

The blisters came two summers ago, after college. The biopsy came back inconclusive, so every month I go back to the office for a check-up.

Camille Jacobson

Jan 08, 2021