Catapult

Cover Photo: Illustration by Levi Hastings for Catapult/Columbia Pictures

Columns | Movie Made Gay

Sex, Lies, and “Closer”: Lying to Survive as a Queer Kid, as Taught by Natalie Portman

Coming into one’s sexuality, Natalie Portman had taught me, goes hand in hand with learning how to deceive as a means of survival.

Manuel Betancourt

Jan 15, 2019

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult

People | Legacies

What Is Common, What Is Rare: Why Extraordinary Events Cannot Eclipse Everyday Racism

We’d denounce the marches and torches and chants. When that moment passed, we’d continue to live with the ghosts of our country’s peculiar legacy.

Jan 14, 2019

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult

Fiction | Short Story

Interplanetary Risk Management and Other Reasons to Quit Cheerleading

Her species procreates through a sacred sermonic skin grafting ritual, but the idea of sex with a teenage human male she found truly grotesque.

Jan 11, 2019

People | Bodies

Missing Hope: A Trio of Miscarriages, and What Happened After

May 09, 2018

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: Mandy Berman, 6-Week Advanced Online Fiction Workshop: Scene & Plot , Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Advanced Online Fiction Workshop: Scene & Plot

Catapult online classes: De'Shawn Charles Winslow, 6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Holding On to Your Readers, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Holding On to Your Readers

De'Shawn Charles Winslow

Catapult online classes: Angela Garbes, 6-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Stocking Your Creative Toolbox, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Stocking Your Creative Toolbox

Catapult online classes: Swan Huntley, 3-Week Online Seminar: Getting Unstuck, Open-Genre, Seminar

Online | Open-Genre | Seminar

3-Week Online Seminar: Getting Unstuck

Catapult online classes: John Lingan, 4-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing Profiles & Immersive Journalism, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Nonfiction | Seminar

4-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing Profiles & Immersive Journalism

Catapult online classes: Elisa Wouk Almino, 6-Week Online Workshop: Introduction to Writing in Translation, Open-Genre, Workshop

Online | Open-Genre | Workshop

6-Week Online Workshop: Introduction to Writing in Translation

Elisa Wouk Almino

Catapult online classes: Maxim Loskutoff, 6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Assembling A Short Story Collection, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Fiction Workshop: Assembling A Short Story Collection

Maxim Loskutoff

Catapult online classes: José Olivarez, 8-Week Online Poetry Workshop: Inspiration is Everywhere, Poetry, Workshop

Online | Poetry | Workshop

8-Week Online Poetry Workshop: Inspiration is Everywhere

Catapult’s Most Popular Stories of 2018

Cover Photo: “Dash around the lightship,” 1886 / via New York Public Library Digital Collections

People | Brains!

How Shanties and Songs of the Sea Helped Me Weather the Storm of Depression

The language of depression can be curiously maritime. It comes in waves; it drowns us; it’s the Mariner’s albatross around our necks.

Blair Thornburgh

Aug 06, 2018

Cover Photo: Illustration by Nicole Caputo for Catapult

Columns | Bayou Diaries

Montrose, the Neighborhood That Gave Us Everything

Montrose was unofficially codified as the nexus of queer life in Houston. If you held a map to the wall, I could tell you how we came to be on those streets.

Bryan Washington

Oct 16, 2018

Cover Photo: Photograph by the Fischer Twins/Unsplash

People | Legacies

Unheard Grief, Unmovable Men: How an Old Mexican Folktale Speaks to Our Pain Today

All the wrong people are crying, and all the people who ought to feel something do not.

John Paul Brammer

Nov 05, 2018

Bodies

Cover Photo: Painting by Francisco de Goya / Illustration by Matt Ortile for Catapult

Writing Motherhood Taught Me About My Emotional and Psychic Inheritance

Cover Photo: Photograph by William Stitt/Unsplash

Once I Had Black Hairdressers, I Learned That Black Hair Did Not Equal Pain

Cover Photo: image via ant_art/iStock

What Bird Watching Gave Me After My Miscarriage

People | Bodies

In the Harsh Climate of Wyoming, I Learned to Listen to My Body

Jenny Tinghui Zhang

Oct 11, 2018

New from Catapult Books

Riddance 3dcvr

Catapult | fiction | black balloon

Riddance; or, The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children by Shelley Jackson

Insomnia 3dcvr

Catapult | memoir

Insomnia by Marina Benjamin

Ultraviolet 3dcvr

Catapult | fiction

Ultraviolet: A Novel by Suzanne Matson

All you can ever know 3dcvr

Catapult | memoir

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

Pen america best debut short stories 2018 3dcvr

Catapult | fiction | anthology

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018

The reservoir tapes 3dcvr

Catapult | fiction

The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor

Patient care 3dcvr

Catapult | memoir | medicine

Patient Care: Death and Life in the Emergency Room by Paul Seward, MD

Northwood 3dcvr

Catapult | black balloon | novella

Northwood by Maryse Meijer

Columns

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult

Columns | Backyard Politics

After Divorce and Postpartum Depression, Work (and Bees) Brought Me Back to Life

It is no wonder that I am so in love with my bees. They fight for their lives.

Christine H. Lee

Jan 08, 2019

Cover Photo: Illustration by Shing Yin Khor for Catapult

Columns | Bad Kimchi

Tteokguk for a New Year and a New Start

When I was younger, I didn’t understand the restorative, purifying effect of tteokguk. Maybe I didn’t even feel like I deserved it. This year, I welcome it.

Jan 08, 2019

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult

Columns | Mom, Interrupted

For Parents and Children with Psychiatric Disabilities, the Stigma Creates an Extra Fight We Don’t Need

So many people have suggested I stop taking medication for my bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, and panic attacks. The stigma is strong.

Katie Rose Pryal

Jan 07, 2019

On Writing

Cover Photo: Image courtesy of Bundo Kim via Unsplash

Every Day is a Writing Day, With or Without an MFA

Cover Photo: Photograph by Annie Spratt

Don’t Submit. Pitch.

Cover Photo: Ceramics & photography by William Sulit

The Tides of Success: A Two-Artist Marriage Confessional

Fiction

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult

Fiction | Short Story

The Most Memorable Annual Pig Parade of Kharagpur

“Devilish,” said all of Kharagpur, after the Rosarios and their pig walked in the annual parade. “No pig’s supposed to jump backwards. Or laugh.”

Jan 04, 2019

Cover Photo: Detail from Margareta Haverman's "A Vase of Flowers"/Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fiction | Short Story

What Does it Mean to Kill Something That Can Fly?

You wanted us to have a baby. I wanted your baby, and also for all the moths in the house to die.

Dec 21, 2018

Cover Photo: Photograph by Krianti/iStock

Fiction | Short Story

The History of Us

The Big was proof that there was a God, and proof that God did not exist.

Dec 14, 2018