Catapult

Cover Photo: A screenshot from the series House MD, depicting the characters Allison Cameron and Gregory House. Cameron is wearing a white lab coat and has her hands on her hips, staring at House in exasperation. House is wearing a t-shirt and looking away from Cameron.

Arts & Culture | Television

Through Fanfiction, I Learned the Machinery of My Mind

On the page, I was intact. I was smart and forceful. I had a comeback for every spar.

Yasmin Roshanian

Jun 21, 2022

Cover Photo: Photograph by Gryffindor/Wikimedia Commons

Places | Migrations

Austria Is Offering Citizenship to Descendants of Jews Exiled During Nazi Occupation. Is That Enough?

This right to return offered to Jews makes me think about who is entitled to join Europe and who is not.

Jun 21, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows a man clutching the sides of a grocery store aisle with a baby strapped to his chest. The end of the aisle is bending and swirling, giving a sense of discomfort and disorientation.

Fiction | Flash

The Baby Carrier Built for Men: FAQs for Commando™

Our desert-night camouflage pattern may bring back memories of the flak you donned in Bagdad.

Jun 17, 2022

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: Sam Allingham, 6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Writing Social Fiction, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Writing Social Fiction

Catapult online classes: Aatif Rashid, 4-Week Fiction Seminar: Description & Sensory Detail, Fiction, Seminar

Online | Fiction | Seminar

4-Week Fiction Seminar: Description & Sensory Detail

Catapult online classes: Bruna Dantas Lobato, 6-Week Online Open-Genre Workshop: The Art of Translation, Fiction, Translation, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Translation | Workshop

6-Week Online Open-Genre Workshop: The Art of Translation

Bruna Dantas Lobato

Catapult online classes: Kwaku Darko-Mensah Jnr. , 1-Day Poetry Seminar: Exploring Poetic Voice through Music, Poetry, Seminar

Online | Poetry | Seminar

1-Day Poetry Seminar: Exploring Poetic Voice through Music

Kwaku Darko-Mensah Jnr.

Catapult online classes: Rafael Frumkin, 6-Week Fiction Workshop: Being Funny, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Fiction Workshop: Being Funny

Catapult online classes: Brittany Cavallaro, 2-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Developing the First Act of Your Young Adult Novel, Fiction, Novel, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Novel | Workshop

2-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Developing the First Act of Your Young Adult Novel

Brittany Cavallaro

Catapult online classes: Shy Watson, 8-Week Poetry Workshop: Contemporary Poets & Poetry, Poetry, Workshop

Online | Poetry | Workshop

8-Week Poetry Workshop: Contemporary Poets & Poetry

Catapult online classes: Beatrice Szymkowiak , 6-Week Generative Poetry Workshop: Ecopoetics in a Time of Environmental Crisis, Poetry, Workshop

Online | Poetry | Workshop

6-Week Generative Poetry Workshop: Ecopoetics in a Time of Environmental Crisis

Beatrice Szymkowiak

Don’t Write Alone

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a man sitting inside a study cubicle with his laptop. He looks frustrated; his hand is clutching his hair and he is staring at his computer with intensity.

Don’t Write Alone | Writing Life

On Writing (with a Day Job)

There are many kinds of writing lives, and yours includes a day job.

Richard Mirabella

Jul 19, 2021

Cover Photo: Photograph by Thomas Franke/Unsplash

Don’t Write Alone | Shop Talk

Nobody Cares What You Have to Say—That’s a Good Thing

Trying to get your work published often feels like calling out into the void, which can be disheartening, but also incredibly freeing.

Aug 03, 2021

Cover Photo: Photograph by Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash

Don’t Write Alone | Writing Life

Like Being a Good-Enough Mother, Being a Good-Enough Writer Is Enough

I love and care for my child unconditionally. Maybe I can do that for my writing too.

Apr 20, 2022

Arts & Culture

Cover Photo: Photograph courtesy of the author

Black Women in Fantasy Saved Me Where Academia Failed

Ravynn K. Stringfield

Cover Photo: Photograph via Disney+

Why I’m Still Dreaming of a Brown Percy Jackson

Cover Photo: A promotional photo for the TV show lost: a multiethnic cast of good-looking people standing in the wreckage of a plane, on a beach

‘Lost’ Fans Gave Me a Safe Place on the Internet. Is Such Fandom Possible Now?

Craft Books from Catapult

Catapult | short stories

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

Catapult

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Catapult | nonfiction

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

Catapult | Creative Writing | Criticism | Reference

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

Columns

Cover Photo: Photograph courtesy of the author

Arts & Culture | Columns | Superhero Girlfriends Anonymous

Black Women in Fantasy Saved Me Where Academia Failed

What I needed was a lifeline—a project that would make this whole thing feel worthwhile. Monica Lynne led me to that answer.

Ravynn K. Stringfield

Jun 16, 2022

Cover Photo: An image of a gold Genuine Original Jean Ring taken by Katie Okamoto

Columns | Objects Of Affection

A Key Ring Returns Me Home

By chance, I’d taken up her keys, the keys of my childhood.

Jun 14, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of a big white clapboard house inside a white frame. The frame is lying on slats of wood, painted white, with a small leaf on the wood next to the frame.

Columns | Unreal Estates

Buying a Starter Home at the End of the World

I knew there was nothing natural about my homeownership. I had merely found a lucky loophole in the midst of tremendous misfortune.

Beth Boyle Machlan

May 31, 2022

Places

Cover Photo: A blue hot lagoon in Iceland

Finding Warmth and Welcome as an Immigrant in Iceland

Michelle Spinei

Cover Photo: A black and white photograph of a desert containing many round, deep craters from nuclear weapons testing.

Studying Nuclear Policy Without Being Engulfed By Fear

Cover Photo: A photograph of a man in a suit, sitting on a desk, with a bandaid on his forehead

As a Teacher in a Pandemic, Where Does Work End and I Begin?

Joelle Renstrom

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 | Short Story

Gentle Cheater

The slip taped to his locker at the post office was an obscene shade of rose—a private pink that called to mind the very thing that had gotten him in trouble in the first place.

Jun 10, 2022

$Cover Photo: An illustration of a female student taking an exam, with a suited man behind her, his hands on her shoulders; the pair is refracted into different student-professor duos in the background$

Fiction | Short Story

Theory of Knowledge

An example of the just-world phenomenon: If anyone found out, they would think I deserved it. When it’s the girl who gets hurt, they always do.

Jun 03, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows a man and a woman sleeping side by side. Around them, bubbles in pink and purple and blue float around their heads.

Fiction | Short Story

The Dreams that Float Above Our Heads

When Lilith and Gerald were married, it was because they should be.

Stephanie Mullings

May 27, 2022