Catapult Staff Picks

What do you do when you want a Flannery O’Connor book cover tattoo but hate birds?

I’m reading Things We Lost in the Fire, a collection of stories by Mariana Enriquez, set in contemporary Argentina, tales full of corruption and drugs and miraculous gauchos, strange insights, unexpected humor. Enriquez is a great constructor of characters who “wink in the half-dark” of cold little rooms.

—Jonathan Lee, Senior Editor

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Not long ago I bought the beautifully illustrated and kid-friendly E. B. White biography Some Writer! for my daughters, and recently I sat down and read it myself. That launched me into what felt like a mandatory reread of White’s collected essays and his letters, so for the past several days my husband has gotten to hear me read a lot of perfect lines aloud and lament the fact that I can’t write like E. B. White, definitely something he knew he was signing up for when he met me. This passage on sailing, from his essay “The Sea and the Wind That Blows,” always makes me think of writing (how I write, honestly; maybe you are better at writing than I am):

Lacking instruction, I invented ways of getting things done, and usually ended by doing them in a rather queer fashion, and so did not learn to sail properly, and still cannot sail well, although I have been at it all my life . . . My earliest boats were so small that when the wind failed, or when I failed, I could switch to manual control—I could paddle or row home. But then I graduated to boats that only the wind was strong enough to move. When I first dropped off my mooring in such a boat, I was an hour getting up the nerve to cast off the pennant. Even now, with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt, I still I feel a memorial chill on casting off, as the gulls jeer and the empty mainsail claps.

—Nicole Chung, Managing Editor, Web & Community

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I am currently reading Freshwater (out February 13th, 2018) by Akwaeke Emezi and I believe it’s going to be one of the most exciting debuts of next year.

—Morgan Jerkins, Contributing Editor, Web

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I usually come back to older books I love whenever I feel troubled (although I’m dying to get my hands on Samantha Hunt’s new collection, The Dark Dark). Since the world has been pretty damn troubling these days, I’ve been revisiting Justin Torres’s We The Animals, Anthony Doerr’s The Shell Collector, and Mary Ruefle’s Most of It.

The eponymous story in The Shell Collector is a personal favorite, as well as “The Hunter’s Wife,” because of the range of emotion that Doerr allows his characters to experience, and because the language is so quietly powerful.

We The Animals has one of my favorite openings in all of literature, and I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings and endings as the threat of nuclear war looms (nbd); Torres’s visceral details of childhood and adolescence are breathtakingly beautiful.

I think Mary Ruefle is a force of nature, and whenever I read her poetry I feel at once as though I’m listening to a dear, dear friend and to a modern oracle narrating the days as they pass.

Also, seeing Atomic Blonde (yes, with Charlize Theron) was the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time. I think I needed to see a badass queer woman protagonist kicking the shit out of dudes who don’t believe she’s capable.

—Kelli Trapnell, Production Associate

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I’m still reading One Piece y’all! About to wrap up the 80+ volume series.

—Casey Gonzalez, Creative Project Manager; Associate Editor, Black Balloon

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A cool thing is when a press only publishes really, really good books, and the collaboration between Emily Books and Coffee House Press has yet to disappoint. I loved Problems by Jade Sharma and The Gift by Barbara Browning, so I’m stoked to have gotten my hands on a copy of Mean by Myriam Gurba, forthcoming from the imprint in November. It’s a good book to read when things seem incredibly bleak (also known as: right now, last week, the week before, etc.) as it’s a book that shines with humor even in its darkest moments. Mean tackles the most serious of topics—sexual assault, racism, homophobia—with a voice that revels in the grim humor of survival.

—Allie Wuest, Editorial Assistant, Web

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I’m rereading The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor. The best part of the new edition of this collection is the bookending of the stories with O’Connor’s first published story, “The Geranium,” and her rewriting of the same story—the last she ever wrote—entitled “Judgement Day.” It’s remarkable to feel the care and attention she clearly felt for these characters, even as their back stories emerged (or submerged) over time. I also want a tattoo of the cover, it’s so damn beautiful (But I hate birds. What to do?)

—Jennifer Abel Kovitz, Associate Publisher

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This week I was slayed in various ways and at various registers by the following short stories: “Duplex” by John Jodzio; “Today I’m Yours” by Mary Gaitskill, from Don’t Cry , whose cover happens to be designed by our own Nicole Caputo; and “Baster” by Jeffrey Eugenides, as read by Akhil Sharma on the New Yorker: Fiction podcast. I may never fully recover.

—Olenka Burgess, Publishing Coordinator