Help us in welcoming Mensah Demary, who joins Catapult this August as our Associate Web Editor. Mensah is a music columnist at The Butter, publisher of Specter Magazine, literary editor of Fourculture Magazine. His writing has appeared in Salon, Men’s Journal, Electric Literature, and PANK. He also co-hosts LIT: A Music and Reading Series in Brooklyn. We asked Mensah if he magically gets more hours in a day than the rest of us but he said that he does not.  

Jumpstart Your Creativity with Intimacy and Candor

As nonfiction writers, we want our readers to say: “My life has been nothing like yours, and yet I profoundly relate to this.”

Intimate details and candor can be the difference between an essay you read and immediately forget, and one that changes you forever. This immersive, day-long writing class will teach you strategies for translating the emotional heart of your stories onto the page in an honest and unforgettable way. I will provide a dozen off-the-wall writing prompts and three lectures designed to help jumpstart your own creative work. In-class sharing and discussion is encouraged. We’ll read snippets from classic and contemporary essayists and generally have a blast. Everyone will leave having produced inspired writing. Open to all levels and ages. Following this intensive master class, we will celebrate the day’s work with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (included in the class fee).

Chloe Caldwell is the author of the novella Women (SF/LD, 2014) and the essay collection Legs Get Led Astray (Future Tense books, 2012). Her work has appeared in VICE, Salon, The Rumpus, Nylon, Men’s Health, and the anthologies Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NYC, True Tales of Lust and Love, 30 Shades of Blue, and Girls? Chloe’s next book, I’ll Tell You In Person, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press/Emily Books in 2016. www.chloecaldwell.com

Why does the caged bird sing? Don’t know.

We teamed up with Electric Literature for a reading to kick off the summer! There will be beer, wine, art, and readings from Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers), Chelsea Hodson (Pity the Animal), and Catherine Lacey (Nobody is Ever Missing).

The staff of WORD Bookstore gives readers tips for how to make the most of your local indie bookstores

Fun fact: WORD booksellers traveled state lines (AKA from their NJ location to their Brooklyn location) so that one of our staffers could have their last copy of Bluets by Maggie Nelson. 

A compelling new art series by Delicious Foods author James Hannaham. 

There’s still time to sign-up for James Hannaham’s six-week writing workshop, starting 4/27.