Stories from our week together at Catapult.
Published on Halloween: this funny, lovely read by Adrian Van Young on goth parenting in New Orleans.
Deepti Kapoor shares everything she thought about when her family was choosing a name for her nephew.
Chelsea Martin and Chloe Caldwell had a heart-to-heart about acne.
Have you ever worked for a family business and felt like . . . well, less than family?
Mensah Demary chatted with Esmé Weijun Wang about writing, illness, her forthcoming essay collection about schizophrenia, and her warm and wonderful Twitter presence.
“I am angry that words are never just words—not for any man—as they wind around and around and around and make the cycle of rape culture complete.”
Kelly Mays on surviving a vicious dog attack and the inherited trauma of being hunted:
Remembering my own experience of being dragged along the ground by a dog, the sensation of teeth sinking into bone, I feel as if the genetic memories embedded within me are also unleashed: I’m flooded with the sense of being hunted down by vicious bloodhounds while fleeing slavery, attacked by German Shepherds for demanding civil rights. It all seems related: my desire to get back up and drag myself to safety, my fierce will to live, my compulsion to try and problem-solve my near-death experience, my fixation with the natural world. I am part of a legacy of suffering and resistance, a path that could never have been forged without attempts to understand the behavior of nonhuman animals.
“Their bearing seemed to declare, Here I am, in all my flawed humanness, and I am content”: Emma Sloley on the vacation she and her husband spent at a nudist resort.
Amy Hassinger wrote so beautifully about the pain of being misdiagnosed and how she learned to be her own advocate—because “no one else will do it for you.”
Literary Pet of the Month: MINKY
Adrienne Celt spent last summer as the Writer-in-Residence at her local library, and it was exactly what she needed.
There have been some wonderful stories and posts shared in our Community this week—here are a few recommendations to get you started: To Find Mad Maudlin, by Jen Hinst-White The Thawing of the Human Body, by Tim Fredrick ‘Atlanta’ is Absurd, by Stephanie Mayo-LeeJuly 37th, November, by Gaya Atkins
Finally, are you looking for some inspiration? Here are two fun writing prompts, along with a recap of our student write-in last Thursday!
Nicole Chung is the author of All You Can Ever Know, a national bestseller and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the forthcoming memoir A Living Remedy. Find her on Twitter: @nicolesjchung
