Catapult | Don't Write Alone

DON’T WRITE ALONE

At Catapult, we believe there’s a better—or at least less lonely—way to write. Here you’ll find writing resources, advice, job and fellowship opportunities, prompts and craft talk, and more.

Writing Prompts

Cover Photo: This image is a screenshot from Phoebe Bridgers' music video for "Kyoto." In this still, Phoebe is flying over a city at sunset wearing a shirt with a skeleton on it.

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Tell More Lies

Poems and stories are only two sorts of lies, but they’re the ones Steven Duong tells most often. Try out his writing exercise to generate new work.

Jan 03, 2022

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a blue miniature Lego Doctor Who TARDIS sitting on a patch of grass. It's a bright sunny day and the sky behind the TARDIS is clear and blue.

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Creating Scenes for Discovery

Storytelling is like the TARDIS in ‘Doctor Who’—the narrower and more specific we get on the outside, the bigger it gets on the inside.

Jan 12, 2022

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a giraffe looking at the camera with its tongue sticking out. It's a close-up picture, so we only see the bright blue sky and a giraffe head with its long neck peeking into the right corner of the frame.

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Writing In Between the Real and Unreal

Sanjena Sathian thinks the most interesting writing material comes from locating mystery in our own lives. Try out this writing exercise to write into that mystery.

Sanjena Sathian

Jan 18, 2022

Columns

Cover Photo: This photograph is a close up of a person's face. Their eyes are closed and they are holding their nose up to a small bunch of lavender. The colors in the picture are bright and vibrant and the person's red shirt stands out in the background of the photo.

Writing the Senses: Smell

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a woman looking at a computer screen in frustration, with her hands on her head. Next to her head are three bright yellow exclamation points, communicating surprise and exasperation.

Book Contracts: Let’s Talk Surprises

Cover Photo: An illustration of a person wearing headphones and sitting in front of a microphone while holding an open book in front of their face. Several books in pink, blue, and yellow exist between the reader's mouth and the microphone, as if a series of layers of barriers. The background is blue and pink.

Trans Voices Belong in the Recording Booth Too

Interviews

Don’t Write Alone | Columns

How’s the Writing Going, Jen Doll?

“I think I’m trying to reconcile the need to write and have a deadline with the need to be a human? And right now, the human is winning.”

Jan 06, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Interviews

“I’m less interested in being a good writer than I am in being an honest writer”: A Conversation with Zeba Blay

“I think that knowing your voice is one thing, but standing by it is such an important part of being a writer.”

Jan 13, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Interviews

A Conversation with Justin Greene, Editor of Where to Submit

‘Don’t Write Alone’ editor Stella Cabot Wilson chats with Justin Greene regarding ‘Entropy’ magazine’s renowned Where to Submit page.

Stella Cabot Wilson

Jan 20, 2022

Catapult | nonfiction

Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum

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

Catapult | anthology

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home

Catapult | fiction

Best Debut Short Stories 2021: The PEN America Dau Prize edited by Yuka Igarashi and Sarah Lyn Rogers