The Catapult

I realized that while I mentioned this on the show and on twitter, I failed to actually put it here, on the dang website: As of (after) Episode 53, The Catapult is on indefinite hiatus. Will we come back? Maybe. Will this website and the 53+ prior episodes be available until the end of time? Absolutely.

In the meanwhile, you can always email me at [email protected]. Thank you/you’re wonderful/go read a book.

Today we have beautiful specimens of the two best kinds of writing: food writing and science writing. That’s not a biased opinion, it’s the factual, absolute truth. Marian Bull reads her essay, “In the Morning Kitchen,” about biscuits and friendliness in North Carolina, and Anthony Michael Morena reads from his book, The Voyager Record: A Transmission, which is amazing and beautiful and comes out in May.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

Also: this will be the last episode of The Catapult, at least for an indefinite while. Call it retirement, cryogenic freezing, or the end of volume one. No promises—I really don’t know—but keep a candle lit for us in the form of your subscription in iTunes or your podcasting app. Keep in touch on twitter: @catapultpodcast​ or @jaimealyse.

If you’d like to read more

by Marian:

"Highly Recommended: Erotic Photo Hunt” (Eater)

“Irregularities: What It Means to Find Your Bar” (Brooklyn Magazine)

“Mess Hall” (TinyLetter)

by Anthony:

Six poems from The Voyager Record (The Normal School)

“Neanderthal Campsite & Life During the Ice Age” (The Ilanot Review)

“ARG” (Flapperhouse)

About the writers:

Marian Bull is a writer, editor, and amateur cook living in Brooklyn. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Peach, Saveur, Cherry Bombe, Bon Appetit, Cosmo, The New Republic, and Eater, among others. Twitter: @marianbull

Anthony Michael Morena is a writer from New York who lives in Tel Aviv. In 2015 he received his MA in creative writing from Bar-Ilan University. His poetry and prose have appeared or will soon in The Normal School, Ninth Letter, Flapperhouse, and Queen Mob’s Tea House. He has also been a guest editor for The Ilanot Review and a regular reader for Gigantic Sequins, a good-looking, biannual, black & white literary arts journal. The Voyager Record: A Transmission (Rose Metal Press 2016) is his first book. anthonymichaelmorena.com / @anphimimor

Thank you. I love you. See you soon.

Today, two young narrators try to make sense of their present and their past, with New York City as the setting, the world, or one more haunting ghost. Zoe Rana Mungin reads her short story, “never get married,” and Lucas Mann reads from his memoir, Lord Fear, which is out in paperback now.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

As always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, all your future hauntings will be positive, at least growth experience.

If you’d like to read more

by Zoe:

"Love, from Mexico” (Quarterly West)

“Ya Tú Sabes: Being Boricua and Morena“ (black youth project)

“never get married” (Route Nine)

by Lucas:

"How I Stole My Brother’s Death And My Father’s Grief” (BuzzFeed Books)

“Percy” (TriQuarterly)

“On Writing Young” (Essay Daily)

About the writers:

Zoe Rana Mungin was born and raised East New York, part of Brooklyn where gentrifiers have only just begun to explore. She’s a graduate of Wellesley College, and currently writes and teaches in Newark, New Jersey where she attempts to explain the importance of semicolons to future engineers. She watches a lot of hockey. She’s working on a project that explores the intersection of colored girls and Sailor Moon. Twitter: @zoemungin

Today we bring you readings from three excellent independent literary magazines: NOÖ, Synaesthesia, and Moss, with short prose from Ari Baum-Hommes, a poem from Tania Nwachukwu, and an excerpt from a short story from Corinne Manning. (Read the rest of that story here.)

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

As always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, your life will be, litmag-like, full of diverse writing with a coherent point of view, interspersed with provocative moments of visual art.

About the writers:

Ari Baum-Hommes is originally from the mystical land of Western Massachusetts. Her fiction has appeared in Two Serious Ladies and Right Hand Pointing. She lives in Minneapolis now, near many, many lakes. twitter: @going_homes

Tania Nwachukwu is a Nigerian writer born and raised in London. She is a member of the Barbican Young Poets collective. Her work has been published in various publications, and performed to audiences across the UK and Nigeria. When she’s not writing, she’s on Skyscanner plotting her next escape. TaniaNwachukwu.Tumblr.com

Corinne Manning is the founding editor of The James Franco Review, an online journal dedicated to the visibility of underrepresented artists. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Story Quarterly, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Nervous Breakdown, The Oxford American, Arts & Letters, and Lit Hub, and as a chapbook through alice blue review's Shotgun Wedding Series. She co-runs The Furnace Reading Series in Seattle, teaches for Writers in the Schools, and is a 2016 Jack Straw Writers Fellow. http://corinnemanning.tumblr.com/

About the magazines:

NOÖ Journal is a free literary print/online journal distributed all over. We are invested in making inclusive and collaborative community in independent literature and art. We put out guest-edited issues called NOÖ Weeklies that in no way can be said to come out weekly.

Synaesthesia Magazine is an online literary and arts magazine, criss-crossing senses worldwide. The magazine aims to engage writers and artists in an exploration of the senses, publishing poetry, short stories, creative nonfiction, photography and artwork. We set a theme for each issue, and encourage a multi-sensory response to each theme.

On this episode: a mother tries to reach her daughter, a woman tries to make sense of a stranger, plus some extraordinary, exuberant poetry. Readings from the writers of three new books: Lynn Steger Strong (Hold Still), Sasha Fletcher (It Is Going To Be A Good Year), and Kaitlyn Greenidge (We Love You, Charlie Freeman).

Also discussed: The Tournament of Books!

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

As always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, your Tournament of Books bracket will be perfect.

If you’d like to read more

by Lynn:

“She” (Blunderbuss)

“My Husband Saved Us By Becoming a Stay at Home Dad“ (ELLE)

by Sasha:

“Something Wonderful” (Prelude)

Four Poems (Powder Keg)

“My Heart Is an Ice Floe and It Will Wreck You” (Big Lucks)

by Kaitlyn:

“Four Tales for Dry Land” (The Offing)

“Language is failing us” (Salon)

About the writers:

Lynn Steger Strong was born and raised in South Florida. She teaches at Pratt Institute, Columbia University, Sackett Street Writer's Workshop and Catapult and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young daughters. Hold Still is her first novel.

Sasha Fletcher is the author of it is going to be a good year (Big Lucks Books), several chapbooks of poetry, and an out of print novella.

Three readings on the moments when our bodies and lives surprise us and betray us, in ways common and seemingly supernatural. Kerry Cullen reads her short story, "Unidentifiable," originally published by Monkeybicycle, A. Igoni Barrett reads from his novel, Blackass (on sale March 1) and Sara Majka reads an excerpt from her collection, Cities I've Never Lived In (on sale now).

This episode also marks two years of this podcast! If you’re in New York, come to Housing Works March 9th to celebrate!

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

As always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, sunset will keep getting later and later until you forget what winter even was.

If you’d like to read more

by Kerry:

“The Rat King” (Fwriction Review)

“Bloodline” (Blunderbuss)

“Tell Me What to Do” (Luna Luna)

by Igoni:

“Be Careless With Your Wishes” (Electric Literature)

“The Worst Thing That Happened” (Guernica)

“Interview: A. Igoni Barrett“ by Ted Hodgkinson (Granta)

by Sara:

“Travelers” (Catapult)

“Saint Andrews Hotel” (Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading)

“Sara Majka on Finding the Distance to Write a Story,” interview by Rebecca Worby (Electric Literature)

About the writers:

Kerry Cullen's work published or is forthcoming in The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, One Teen Story, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, and more. Kerry is an editorial assistant at Henry Holt & Co. and earned her MFA at Columbia University. She is represented by Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company. She is currently writing a novel about sex, god, and Christian rock.

A. Igoni Barrett is the author of Blackass and Love Is Power, Or Something Like That, as well as a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, and the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short stories have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Nigeria.

This isn’t Valentine’s Day, but it’s also not safe for work or children. What it is safe for is adults who love readings from great new novels! Tony Tulathimutte reads from Private Citizens, Belinda McKeon reads from Tender, and you have a wonderful half-hour or so.

Also discussed: Maris Kreizman’s “Unlove Me: I Found Love Because I Got Lucky, Not Because I Changed Myself“ and Alanna Massey’s “Why you're wrong to hate Valentine's Day: a short list of rebuttals.” And this steam mop.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

If you’d like to read more

by Tony

"What Kind of Name Is That” (The Paris Review)

“Proposals Toward the End of Writing” (The Believer Logger)

“Chris Farley and the Weight of Comedy“ (Vice)

by Belinda

“The Art of Going the Distance” (LitHub)

“Me, myself and I in an age of autobiographical fiction“ (The Guardian)

“The joy of rediscovering teen magazines as a grown-up“ (The Pool)

About the writers:

Tony Tulathimutte is the author of the novel Private Citizens (William Morrow, 2016). A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has contributed to VICE, Salon, The New Yorker online, Threepenny Review, AGNI, The LA Review of Books, The American Reader, and other places. He has been selected for an O. Henry Award and a MacDowell Fellowship; his website is at tonytula.com.

On this episode, poetry in translation and an essay on translation. But it’s also all about love, isolation, communication, and all the things words can and can’t do about that. KT Billey and Anna Rosenwong read their translations, and Gregory Pardlo reads his essay, “On Translation.”

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

As always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, then make a wish, could backwards from ten, and think of how you’ve just helped a podcast you love.

If you’d like to read more

by KT:

"Atlantic Crossing” (w/ interview) (Brooklyn Poets)

“Forest fire, supper time” (Blunderbuss)

“Collateral” (The Boiler)

by Anna:

"Il Tuo Giorno, La Notte, Il Nudo Spaggia”  (Pool Poetry)

"I've got gold fever 120 degrees" by José Eugenio Sánchez (Center for the Art of Translation)

 "1-02" by Victoria Guerrero (Words Without Borders)

by Gregory:

“Raisin” (w/ interview) (Brooklyn Poets)

“Written by Himself” (New York Times Magazine)

“Copenhagen, 1995″ (Muzzle Magazine)

About the writers:

K.T. Billey’s Vulgar Mechanics (seeking publication) was a finalist for the 2015 Pamet River Prize from YESYES books. Originally from rural Alberta, Canada, her poems have appeared in CutBank, The New Orleans Review, Prelude, Poor Claudia, and others, and her poem “Girl Gives Birth to Thunder” won Vallum’s 2015 Poetry Prize. Assistant Editor for Asymptote, she translates from Icelandic and Spanish and lives in New York City. See more at ktbilley.com.

Anna Rosenwong is an editor, translator, poet, and educator. Her publications include Rocío Cerón’s Diorama (winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award), José Eugenio Sánchez's Suite Prelude a/H1N1, Climax with Double Cheese, and a longer forthcoming volume, as well as an original collection of poetry, By Way of Explanation. She is the translation editor of Drunken Boat. Her literary and scholarly work has been featured in World Literature Today, The Kenyon Review, Translation Studies, The St Petersburg Review, Pool, and elsewhere. To read more, check out annarosenwong.com

The Art of Commerce—Episode XLVIII: "They become more of a person, more of a presence"

On this episode we’ve got two nonfiction readings, about the big things that change your life—marriage, love, sickness, death—and the small things that make it matter—a cake, a meal, a friend dancing in her kitchen. Okay, those things aren’t small... and that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Cara Parks reads her essay, "I Dropped the Wedding Cake, and Other Confessions From a Wedding Caterer,” and Paul Lisicky reads the opening of his new memoir, The Narrow Door (out January 19).

Also discussed: “The Yellow Wallpaper,” “No Man’s Land,” “The Trouble With Wilderness,” “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.,” Running in the Family.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, that counts as two of your vegetable servings for the day.

If you’d like to read more

by Cara:

“Instill Life” (The New Republic)

“Herd Historian” (Washingtonian)

“The Original Southern Peanut Was Thought To Be Extinct, But One Farmer Is Bringing It Back“ (Modern Farmer)

by Paul:

“The New Rhoda” (The Offing)

“Biology” (Storyscape)

“On The Fugue, Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother, DFW, and the Resistance to the One Thing“ (Essay Daily)

About the writers:

Cara Parks is a freelance editor and writer, as well as the Breakfast and Booze editor for Roads and Kingdoms. Previously, she was executive editor of Modern Farmer magazine, deputy managing editor of Foreign Policy, and the Huffington Post's World editor. She’s written for The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic, Aeon, Foreign Policy, and Roads and Kingdoms, among others. caraparks.net

This episode takes us through the many ages of man—man and girl and mothers. From a child beauty queen making a clean break to a middle-aged man reckoning with the fallibility of his mother’s body, and his own, this is a terrifying, hilarious, and, above all, corporeal episode. Helen Ellis reads a story from her collection, American Housewife, which comes out January 12, and Michael Ian Black reads the introduction to his new book, Navel Gazing, which is out now.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, your personal karma stores will be instantly replenished.

If you’d like more

by Helen:

“What I Do All Day” (MonkeyBicycle)

“Housekeeping!” (Lenny Letter)

by Michael:

You're Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations

listen to How to Be Amazing

About the writers:

Helen Ellis is the acclaimed author of Eating the Cheshire Cat. She is a poker player who competes on the national tournament circuit. Raised in Alabama, she lives with her husband in New York City. @WhatIDoAllDay

Two Joshes for the price of one podcast today! With trains, taxis, stealth marketing, and the gentlest self-loathing thrown in for free. Josh Fruhlinger reads from his novel, The Enthusiast, and Josh Gondelman reads from his humor book (co-written with Joe Berkowitz), You Blew It!: An Awkward Look at the Many Ways in Which You've Already Ruined Your Life. Also mentioned in this episode: Slate’s “The Overlooked Books of 2015,” featuring Jaime on Margaret Lazarus Dean’s Leaving Orbit.

If you’re in or near LA, check out the launch party for The Enthusiast Dec 15.

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes or in your favorite podcatching app, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, that would be a lovely think for you to do!

If you’d like to read more

by Josh Fruhlinger:

“Popes Who Never Got to Be Saints” (The Toast)

“Cartoon Violence Down the Memory Hole” (Wonkette)

“Love and Other Conspiracies of ‘The X-Files’” (The Awl)

by Josh Gondelman:

“Works from the Los Angeles Museum of Photographic Self-Portraiture” (The New Yorker)

“I Had Given Up On The NFL. Then Nana Became A Patriots Fanatic.” (BuzzFeed)

“Outerspanx, Butt Lampshades, and Zoolandery Vibes: A Front-Row Virgin Reviews Chromat” (Elle)

About the writers:

In 2004, Josh Fruhlinger created The Comics Curmudgeon, a blog dedicated to analyzing and mocking newspaper comic strips. Against all expectations, this made him vaguely Internet famous, and he still updates it daily. His writing has appeared online at ITworld, Wonkette, The Awl, The Billfold, and The Toast; with Conor Lastowka, he created [Citation Needed], a blog and book series highlighting the best of Wikipedia’s worst writing. The Enthusiast is his first novel. He and his wife live in Los Angeles. joshreads.com

Looking for something to spice up your commute? Look no further! There are hundreds of bookish podcasts on iTunes and there’s something for everyone. Here are twenty-five of the best.

Sailboats, witches, fathers, beer, red wine, tequila, and supplications to the power of Death: new nonfiction from Kea Krause and Alex Mar. Kea reads a lightly condensed version of her essay, “Shelters and Storms,” which appeared (in full) at The Toast. Alex reads an excerpt from her book, Witches of America, which is out now. Also discussed: Meaghan O’Connell’s latest column for The Cut, “Parenthood Means Constantly Imagining Worst-Case Scenarios.”

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes or in your favorite podcatching app, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, that would be a lovely think for you to do!

If you’d like to read more

by Kea:

“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great White Shark” (Narratively)

“Hundreds of Mormons Reenacted the Book of Mormon in Upstate New York Last Week“ (VICE)

“Deep Secrets” (Columbia Journal online)

by Alex:

“Sky Burial: Excarnation in Texas” (Oxford American)

“Satan in Poughkeepsie” (The Believer)

“A Surprising Weekend Inside the Touchy-Feely World of Polyamory“ (Nerve)

About the writers:

Kea Krause is a writer from the Pacific Northwest living in New York. Her work has appeared on VICE, The Toast, Broadly, The Rumpus, Narratively and is forthcoming in The Believer.  She holds an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University where she taught an undergraduate creative writing workshop.  You can find her online at keakrause.com and @KeaMKrause.

Weird, whimsical, horrific, romantic—very short stories can make room for some of the strangest, most wonderful things. On today’s episode, Rahawa Haile and Lincoln Michel illuminate the mundane, the eccentric, and the extraordinary in six very short stories.

Lincoln’s collection Upright Beasts, is out now from Coffee House Press. Also mentioned in this episode: The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin and Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby.

(Note: Due to a technical error (a hard drive falling on the floor) there is no outtro music on this episode. Please keep the hard drive in your thoughts and prayers so that there may be outtro music again on future episodes.)

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes or in your favorite podcatching app, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, that really helps the show grow.

If you’d like to read more

by Rahawa:

“A Low and Distant Paradise” (Pacific Standard)

“One Short Story, Every Day” (interview @ The Oyster Review)

“The Lives and Loves of Intricate Cakes” and “When The Seltzer’s Like ‘Nah’ and You’re Like ‘Oh Please, Please Be Cold’ and the Seltzer’s Like ‘Nah’” (Midnight Breakfast)

by Lincoln:

“The Room Inside My Father’s Room” (Catapult)

“My Life in the Bellies of Beasts” (VICE)

“Dark Air” (Granta)

About the writers:

Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean-American writer of short stories and essays. Find her on Twitter at @RahawaHaile.

Today we have three essays about books and the ways they influence our lives, reflect our lives back at us, and resonate with our own stories. Vivian Lee on karaoke and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Myles Tanzer on subway survival and Sex and the City, and Miranda Popkey on escape and The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty. These essays were all published by The Oyster Review, a too-beautiful-to-live home for wide-ranging writing about books. The Oyster Review has gone into the sunset, but long live wide-ranging writing about books.

Other Oyster Review essays mentioned in this episode:

Gabriel Roth on Phillip Roth

Choire Sicha on Ursula K. Le Guin

Jaime Green on Choire Sicha’s Very Recent History

Download this episode from iTunes, subscribe on iTunes or in your favorite podcatching app, or listen right here:

And as always, if you’d leave a rating & review in iTunes, that really helps the show grow.

If you’d like to read more

by Vivian:

Here is a song (Vivian’s Tinyletter)

“Dating, By the Book” (The Oyster Review)

by Myles:

"The Minds Behind Apple Music Explain How What A Time To Be Alive Became A Global Moment” (The FADER)

“’We Belong Together’ Turns 10! Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, and L.A. Reid on Making the Smash Hit“ (Vogue)

“Exclusive: New York Times Internal Report Painted Dire Digital Picture“ (BuzzFeed)

by Miranda:

“Elena Ferrante’s Unruly Bodies” (The New Republic)

“Why Do Adult Women Love One Direction Slash Fanfiction?“ (Broadly)

“The Untrustworthy Reader” (The New Inquiry)

About the writers:

Vivian Lee is an editor in publishing and (occasionally) a writer based in New York City. You can find her on Twitter or bi-monthly on hernewsletter.

Myles Tanzer is an editor and reporter living in Ridgewood, Queens. He's currently the news editor of The FADER and has written for places such as BuzzFeed, Vogue, and New York Magazine. He's originally from Staten Island and loves pizza. @mylestanzer