Catapult

Cover Photo: A GIF of a figure standing silhouetted at the end of an alley, scratching their head as if bemused. Around them, a dense bright wall of billboards and signs rise up on either side, flashing words like "Hey" and "Hurry" and "Act Now" and "Sale" in bright, garish letters.

Places | In Public

Why Advertising Feels Like a Form of Urban Pollution

The problem isn’t encountering text, or even a lot of it. It’s the text that we encounter, the how and why of its coming to be.

Nov 30, 2022

Cover Photo: A screenshot of the actor Matthew Morrison from the show Glee, playing the drama teacher Will Schuester. He is wearing a checkered shirt and a sweater vest and has his hands spread out in an enthusiastic gesture while smiling.

Arts & Culture | Television

Why Pop Culture Loves the Toxic Drama Teacher Trope

There is a great tradition of depicting the archetype of the unbridled, emotionally exploitative acting teacher.

Nov 29, 2022

Cover Photo: Photograph by Eduardo Velazco Guart/Unsplash

Places | Family | On The Road

Revenge Travel Helped Me Learn to Manage My Anxiety

Though I estranged myself from my toxic family, their hold on my mind still needed to let me go. So I got on a plane and left.

Nov 28, 2022

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Photo of Anna Qu with the cover of "Made in China"

Online | Nonfiction, Memoir | Workshop

The Online Memoir Generator: 12 Months to a Full Draft

Catapult online classes: Mila Jaroniec, The Online Novel Generator: 12 Months to a Full Draft, Fiction, Novel, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Novel | Workshop

The Online Novel Generator: 12 Months to a Full Draft

Catapult online classes: Zeyn Joukhadar, 4-Week Online Novel Seminar: How to Structure a Novel, Novel, Seminar

Online | Novel | Seminar

4-Week Online Novel Seminar: How to Structure a Novel

Catapult online classes: Mike Scalise, 4-Week Nonfiction Seminar: The Everyday Memoir, Memoir, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Memoir, Nonfiction | Seminar

4-Week Nonfiction Seminar: The Everyday Memoir

Photo of Julian Delgado Lopera with the cover of "Fiebre Tropical"

Online | Fiction | Seminar

4-Week Fiction Seminar: Generating Voice

Julián Delgado Lopera

Graphic image saying "Reading Queer Books in Translation as Writers" with cover images of "La Bastarda," "Cereus Blooms at Night," "Last Night in Nuuk," and "In the Face of Death We Are Equal"

Online | Fiction | Reading Group

4 Weeks of Reading Queer Books in Translation as Writers

Photo of Shaina Phenix with the logos for "The Offing," "West Branch," "Shenandoah," and "Puerto Del Sol"

Online | Poetry | Seminar

4-Week Poetry Seminar: Writing the Beasts that Haunt Us

Photo of Nat Mesnard with the cover of "Business Wizards!"

Online | Fiction, Open-Genre | Intensive

Interactive Fiction Incubator: 12 Months to a Released Game

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: Photograph via Nintendo

How the Pokémon Soundtracks Unlock a Unique Form of Nostalgia

Cover Photo: Photograph via 20th Century Fox

The Mom in ‘Home Alone’ Is a Messy and Magnificent Model of Motherhood

Cover Photo: Photograph via Netflix

As a Queer Author, I Thought I Had to Come Out Before My Books Did

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 screenshot of a female android from the film EX MACHINA. She is standing next to a mirror and looking away from the camera. Her neck and scalp show exposed wiring around her face.

Columns | Women Watching Horror Films

Do Female Androids Dream of Rebellion?

There is something revolutionary in their will to be free.

Heather O'Neill

Nov 23, 2022

Cover Photo: An image of trees

Columns | Science | Mother Of All Messes

On Mother Trees: What Old-Growth Trees Taught Me About Parenting

I was helpful, but unlike the giving tree, I was not entirely happy.

Nov 17, 2022

Cover Photo: an image of the actors Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo from the film '13 Going on 30': they're dancing!

Columns | I’ll Have What She’s Having

‘13 Going on 30’ Didn’t Prepare Me to Be Thirty, Flirty, and Striving

Weren’t your thirties supposed to be the time when “real adulthood” begins? What if, instead of thriving, you’re striving?

Nov 08, 2022

Places

Cover Photo: Photograph by Darren Lawrence/Unsplash

Reading Joan Didion Taught Me How to Not Write About Hawaiʻi

Cover Photo: Map photograph via Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

Why We’re Still Bewitched by the Salem Witch Trials

Alex Sujong Laughlin

Cover Photo: A photograph of a small child in a dress peeking out from a lush garden.

The Language of Plants Was Shaped By a Colonial Past

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 adults looking at a girl on the swings

Fiction | Short Story

Give A Little

A sticky silence befalls the house for many weeks.

Nov 18, 2022

Cover Photo: This is a colorful illustration of a Black woman sitting in a blue chair with a child on her lap. The child's dress has American flags on it. There are two plants on either side of the chair and the drawing has many patterns.

Fiction | Short Story

The Americanization of Kambili

I hissed the words at her. “This, your America, it will kill you.”

Nov 04, 2022

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Fiction | Short Story

Model Home

Here’s the truth. We live in a model home in a prestigious village in a master-planned city. Beyond those borders, things aren’t so rosy.

Oct 28, 2022