Catapult

Cover Photo: Photograph courtesy of the author; book jacket via Algonquin Books

Catapult | What's The Word

Writing to Preserve My Family on the Page

Family has blessed my life and trusted me to tell our stories for true. To render us on the page in recognizable ways. From the first word to the last.

Jamila Minnicks

Sep 27, 2022

Cover Photo: An image of a woman with a baby

Catapult | What's The Word

Becoming Fluent in Baby Talk

Parenting didn’t just change the way I talked and behaved, it changed the way I saw the world.

Sep 27, 2022

Cover Photo: A n old photograph in sepia tones of a baby sitting on a checkered couch with her young parents, who are dressed in nineties-style clothing. In the top left corner of the photo is a black and white stamp that says "Translation Week Sep. 2022" in the style of a passport stamp.

Catapult | What's The Word

Translating the Immigrant Experience Into Fiction

These stories are my inheritance, which is not the same as sole ownership.

Sep 26, 2022

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES

Catapult online classes: Tara Campbell, 12-Week Speculative Fiction Intensive: Revising Reality, Fiction, Intensive

Online | Fiction | Intensive

12-Week Speculative Fiction Intensive: Revising Reality

Catapult online classes: Rachel Vorona Cote, 6-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing Nonfiction for Diverse, Online Audiences, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Nonfiction | Seminar

6-Week Online Nonfiction Seminar: Writing Nonfiction for Diverse, Online Audiences

Rachel Vorona Cote

Catapult online classes: Bruna Dantas Lobato, 6-Week Open-Genre Workshop: Publishing Translations, Fiction, Translation, Workshop

Online | Fiction, Translation | Workshop

6-Week Open-Genre Workshop: Publishing Translations

Bruna Dantas Lobato

Catapult online classes: Frances Badalamenti , 8-Week Fiction Workshop: The Study & Practice of Autofiction, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

8-Week Fiction Workshop: The Study & Practice of Autofiction

Frances Badalamenti

Catapult online classes: Rachel Kincaid, 3-Week Nonfiction Seminar: Theory & Practices of Exploratory Writing, Nonfiction, Seminar

Online | Nonfiction | Seminar

3-Week Nonfiction Seminar: Theory & Practices of Exploratory Writing

Catapult online classes: Lee Cole, 6-Week Fiction Workshop: Writing About Place, Fiction, Workshop

Online | Fiction | Workshop

6-Week Fiction Workshop: Writing About Place

Catapult online classes: Krys Malcolm Belc, 6-Week Generative Nonfiction Workshop: Writing & Revising Linked Flash Essays, Nonfiction, Workshop

Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

6-Week Generative Nonfiction Workshop: Writing & Revising Linked Flash Essays

Krys Malcolm Belc

Catapult online classes: Julia Phillips, 4-Week Fiction Seminar: Structuring Your Story, Fiction, Seminar

Online | Fiction | Seminar

4-Week Fiction Seminar: Structuring Your Story

Application Week

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a row of students in a classroom, all masked, all rapt with attention.

Don’t Write Alone | Toolkit

So You Want to Apply for an MFA

For our Application Week series, MFA directors and professors discuss common misconceptions, how they support students, and answer that ubiquitous question: Is getting an MFA worth it?

Aug 15, 2022

Cover Photo: This photograph shows three young men sitting on a picturesque rolling green hill. Sheep graze around them and there are blue mountains reaching up into fluffy white clouds in the distance.

Don’t Write Alone | Shop Talk

A Person of Color’s Guide to Navigating Writing Residencies

For our Application Week series, Hannah Bae writes about applying to and attending writing residencies as a person of color—along with tips from about ten other writers who identify as BIPOC.

Aug 17, 2022

Cover Photo: A panel of three women sitting at a judges' table in front of a window. One has a laptop in front of her, a second is taking notes, and a third is speaking.

Don’t Write Alone | Shop Talk

How to Apply for Grants and Residencies

As part of our Application Week series, Jasmine Dreame Wagner writes about putting together your strongest proposal to get funding for your work-in-progress.

Jasmine Dreame Wagner

Aug 16, 2022

Arts & Culture

Cover Photo: A photograph of two people grappling on a mat in an indoor arena. Around them are blurred spectators.

Every Queer Person Should Learn How to Fight

Cover Photo: A screenshot from the sitcom 'Friends,' in which the core cast members are joined by Brad Pitt as they sit inside a fancy Manhattan apartment and talk.

The One With the Offensive Joke About Intersex People

Cover Photo: Photograph by Shahzin Shajid/Unsplash

Legolas Bends the Space-Time Continuum

Jami Nakamura Lin

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 photograph of an hourglass in a wooden frame on a white table in front of a white painted brick wall.

Columns | Mother Of All Messes

Watching the Clock: On Parenting in the Climate Crisis

I practice thinking about time like a geologist, but, mostly, I can manage only to think about it like a mother.

Sep 19, 2022

Cover Photo: Two side-by-side photographs of the writer, Tabitha Blankenbiller, in Paris. On the left she is posing with a man in a uniform. On the right she is posing in the street in front of the Eiffel Tower. In both photos she is wearing a black collared dress with a white print of the Eiffel Tower.

Columns | Hemlines

In a World of Impermanence, I’ll Always Have Paris

I have never felt further from a former version of myself as I do now, here, today.

Tabitha Blankenbiller

Sep 14, 2022

Cover Photo: A photograph of caprese salad on a grey plate, shot from above. Large slices of tomato are arranged with torn hunks of fresh mozzarella and scattered basil leaves.

Columns | Minced Words

As a Disabled Cook, I Need Adaptable Recipes

When it comes to food prep, I have to be honest with myself about what I’m capable of—and, more importantly, what I’m not.

Gabrielle Drolet

Sep 06, 2022

Places

Cover Photo: Photograph by Ryan Nicoll/Unsplash

The False Comfort of the ’80s Suburban Lawn

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a dirty bar bathroom covered in stickers, lit in a dingy yet comforting yellow light.

Always Check the Bathrooms

Cover Photo: Photograph by No Revisions/Unsplash

Save a Life, Drink Outside

Joseph Osmundson

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 silhouettes about to kiss

Fiction | Flash

A Lesson

Neither of you knew that your night together would smash everything.

Meredith Talusan

Sep 23, 2022

Cover Photo: An illustration of an immaculately dressed older man wearing a straw pork-pie hat and smoking a cigarette in an old-fashioned holder. He is sitting in a garden between long, sculpted rows of lilac bushes.

Fiction | Short Story

The Benefactor

The bills were too thick to conceal in my pocket, so I reached inside my briefs and hid them there.

Sep 16, 2022

Cover Photo: This illustration shows a man peering into the blue light in the fridge at a woman draped in scrambled eggs. She is surrounded by milk bottles and fruits and other foodstuffs one might find in the fridge.

Fiction | Short Story

Egg Mother

“I’m staging an intervention,” my husband says. “I miss my wife. I can’t be married to scrambled eggs anymore. You have to see a therapist.”

Sep 09, 2022