books

Catapult Books, an indie publisher that has supported authors across Southern California and beyond, has been sold.

Launched by Elizabeth Koch and Andy Hunter more than a decade ago, the independent publisher will shutter operations in just over a week, per Publisher’s Weekly, which spoke with members of the publisher’s union. The Catapult Workers Collective said the company’s sale included the assets only and that the union was notified their employment would not be rolled over to the new buyer.

According to union reps, the publisher announced plans to sell the business while staff were in the midst of a union vote. The union, which includes roughly 20 staff members across various publishing departments, told the outlet that they had filed for an election earlier in the year seeking better pay, job stability, and clearer communication from executives.

The union is now hashing out a severance package, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s unclear what will happen to the 16 upcoming book titles scheduled through spring 2027.

“Catapult is intrinsic to L.A. culture and L.A. literature. So many of their writers are in this area,” Gina Frangello told The Times on Thursday. The author penned “Blow Your House Down,” published by Counterpoint Press, an imprint of Catapult.

“It’s a huge loss for L.A.,” she said. “It’s a huge loss for the West Coast.”

Frangello has been publishing books for more than 20 years, and she said she’d never had the intimate publishing experience she had with Counterpoint, specifically with Dan Smetanka. The editorial director and senior vice president of Catapult is widely known in literary circles for his meticulous and thoughtful approach to editing and for his support of the authors he works with.

“As someone who has been in indie publishing culture since the ’90s, Catapult was a holdout of an old world,” Frangello said. “Dan ran things the way they used to, in the storied, fabled days of publishing before everything went corporate.”

Susan Straight, author of “Sacrament” and winner of the L.A. Times Book Prizes’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, emailed The Times a missive on the Catapult news. She wrote that on Wednesday she attended the grand opening of Barnes & Noble’s new location in Ontario, “where more than a hundred readers were lined up outside, some having brought chairs to wait.”

“We keep hearing that Americans aren’t reading — for two hours I saw people of all ages browsing, buying books, and talking to each other,” she continued. “About fifty people came and talked to me, and bought copies ‘In the Country of Women,’ my memoir published by Catapult, and ‘Sacrament,’ my latest novel, published by Counterpoint. Both are indelibly So Cal Books, filled with Fontana, East Hollywood, Santa Ana, Los Feliz, and San Bernardino, and the readers were from all these places. …

“I lit a veladora last night, the Virgen de Guadalupe, set it next to a bouquet of California sage from my yard, because I’m a So Cal native, and whatever happens, I wanted to thank the universe for the editors like Dan Smetanka who’ve brought our stories to the rest of the world.

“Wednesday morning, I spent time talking about narrative with nurses, teachers, students, mothers, and nascent writers from all over So Cal. Americans are still reading — I see it every day in my community, which needs books by presses like Counterpoint and Catapult.”

Since Catapult’s debut in 2015, the indie outfit and its authors have been a force on the awards circuit, landing the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Award in Literature, a PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, the Maine Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Meredith Maran, the author of more than a dozen books including a novel published by Counterpoint in 2012, “A Theory of Small Earthquakes,” also mourned the publisher in a note to The Times, writing, “Counterpoint, its imprints, and its beating heart, Dan Smetanka, have been (I cannot bring myself to say ‘were’) the stuff of legends. True legends. I’ve published books with all of the big 5 houses and comparing those experiences to the Counterpoint experience, the Dan experience, is like comparing an AI-generated metaphor, to, well, this one. Counterpoint humanized publishing, revered its authors, honored and will live on in its books.”

Over the last decade, Catapult included a publishing imprint, digital magazine, and courses for budding and established writers. (The latter two were nixed in 2023.) In 2016, it merged with Counterpoint Press, which brought into the fold its own imprint, Soft Skull Press. Last fall, Catapult also acquired Hawthorne Books. In 2023, Catapult Chief Executive Koch — the daughter of billionaire industrialist and businessman Charles Koch — launched another pet project in 2021, Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit storytelling and experiential organization.

Bestselling author Tod Goldberg, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction this year for his novel “Only Way Out,” posted a tribute to the publisher on social media Wednesday night, crediting Smetanka and Counterpoint with taking a chance on “a book others wouldn’t touch” and with that book’s subsequent success, which changed Goldberg’s life.

“Since their founding, Counterpoint has published books that matter, has taken chances on authors and topics that others wouldn’t, and have been celebrated for this strident independence with wide critical acclaim and commercial success. From their roots in the Bay Area — where they published the likes of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Anne Lamott, Mary Robison early on — to their move south into Los Angeles, where they took on writers like myself, Natashia Deon, Karen Bender, Gina Frangello, Elizabeth Crane, Ben Ehrenreich, Dana Johnson, Vanessa Hua, Joan Silber, to name just a few, plus the late Eve Babitz.”

“Counterpoint took big risks and found big rewards. I’m confident that whomever the buyer is (and I’ve not been told, so y’all can stop texting me…) will keep these great writers in print while also continuing to publish new work from them, but what’s lost here is not merely a publishing house, but a culture of excellence, of risk taking, plus a dash of punk rock.”

EXCLUSIVE – boss of hit Disney+ show Rivals says plans are well underway for filming of Season three and he was able to discuss some big story ideas with Jilly before her sad death in 2025.

Rivals bosses have confirmed Season three is heading to Disney+ in 2027 – with more changes expected from the book’s storylines.

Fans of the hit series, based on Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles novels, are eagerly awaiting episodes 7-12 of Season two which will launch on the streaming platform on November 11. And now it seems there won’t be too long to wait for even more episodes.

Speaking at a special tribute night to Jilly Cooper at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Rivals executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins praised the cast and crew for being so close and creating a fantastic atmosphere on set. He also says big upcoming storylines already had Jilly’s approval before her death.

Dominic said: “I’ve never worked on a show where everyone has come back for season two. All the heads of department came back. Almost everyone is coming up with season three. That just doesn’t happen. But we are ambitious, and we look at every scene rigorously and say, how could it be better?”

“We had Jilly’s notes for season one and all the way through season two. We talked to her about our plans for season three and beyond. So she’s checking on us, and we’ve got her seal of approval on big, things, big story points. We start filming in March and it is odd writing without Jilly.”

Referring to Jilly, who died in October last year, he added: “She was a friend and she became a sort of fairy godmother to all of us. And how lucky we were to have Jilly Cooper as our friend.”

Rivals has been a huge success since it launched in October 2024 with cast including David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Emily Atack and Katherine Parkinson.

At the same event Jilly’s daughter Emily Tarrant added that her mum had loved Rivals and the way it gave her books a new lease of life. She added: “She was joyous about it, so thrilled to see all her characters come to life.”

Disney+ have said Season Three will see the stakes become even higher for some of the characters. Announcing Season Three earlier in the year they said: “New romances blossom, old flames rekindle and shocking secrets will be spilled in this third series which takes everyone’s favourite rivalries to the next level. In a world of power, passion and betrayal, everyone has something to lose.”

Jilly’s agent Felicity Blunt, who also acts as en executive producer on Rivals, insisted the late writer understood that the TV version of her books couldn’t be exactly the same and would feature shock deaths or new characters.

Felicity said: “She really understood what it takes to take a book and translate it to screen, and then it can’t be this sort of slavish reproduction of what works in the text, like it has.

“There is a totally different three-dimensional quality to making a piece of great television, and she was the first person to bless any decision that deviated from the book, and really understood why.”

* Rivals Rivals Season 2, Part 2 will premiere on Wednesday, November 11 on Disney+.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

What is pornography? We tend to think of it monolithically, as something created by and for hetero men, reinforcing sexist stereotypes and machismo behavioral codes. For over 20 years, Erika Lust has been fighting against those preconceptions, creating adult content that expands the parameters of pornography while approaching it as something akin to mainstream independent cinema. Her subscription-only website features content that leaps over gender boundaries, and has pulled in fans around the globe.

In her new book “Lust,” the filmmaker makes a convincing case for an ethical, intelligent porn that can expand our ideas about sex and intimacy. I recently chatted with Lust about sex, power and the internet.

✍️ Author Chat

Are we calling it pornography? Adult content? What do you call it?

For me, it is pornography. What I do is pornography because I work with explicit images, but I also work with cinema, and I strive for cinematic vision and craft. I don’t just pick up a camera, film people having sex and put it online. It is a whole creative process. So when I talk about my work, I see myself first as a filmmaker whose subject matter happens to be pornography.

What compelled you to create adult content?

I was born in Sweden, and I became a feminist quite young. I studied political science in college. When I was exploring my sexuality in my late teens and early twenties, I became more and more interested in finding out about our desires and who we are and what we are attracted to. And then I started to watch porn [and] felt horrible watching it. I felt a little bit troubled by the images. Why are all these female characters just there to please the man? It wasn’t about the women, it wasn’t their stories, and that made me feel a bit angry. When I talked to other women about this, they felt the same way. I felt there was something to explore there. Of course at the time, I had no idea I would be doing this for a living.

There are a lot of tired tropes about adult content that you debunk in your book. That the performers come from broken homes and are forced to do things on camera without their consent and so on.

It’s so easy for people to think that in the sex industry there’s going to be exploitation. But my experience is the opposite. Because people I work with dare to talk about sex. The conversation is over the table, not under the table. The people I have met and worked with in this business are intelligent and smart, with a very clear plan of their future. They take care of themselves, their bodies and their sexuality.

In “Lust,” Erika Lust debunks tropes and stereotypes surrounding the production of pornography.

(Jahel Guerra)

How has technology affected how we think about sex?

There’s a lot of sex anxiety going on in our society, and I think that also has a lot to do with technology and how it has taken over our lives. And I’m reading more articles about the intimacy crisis, and the fear that people have of connecting with other people, and young people who are not having sex. Technology has gone wild. It has taken over our lives. People are afraid of other people, of friction, of negotiating boundaries. They don’t know how to explain their own desires so they would rather talk to robots. I think we need to disconnect from technology, and think more deeply and talk to each other — not just about sex, but about everything.

Given the ubiquity of free adult content on the web, how do you compel customers to subscribe to your site?

I think people that subscribe are looking for something completely different, something more elevated, and they understand that that kind of film costs money. I can’t shoot without paying my crew and my staff. Shooting with an Alexa camera is not the same thing as picking up my mobile phone. And then I need crew members who can work with that technology, I need gaffers and electricians, I need to pre-light the set the day before, and so on. The budgets that I’m working with are really budgets for independent films. We have a staff of 45 working with me and my husband.

It’s the last artistic underground, really. I did notice that Bruce LaBruce, a filmmaker whom you mention in your book, has a collection of his films presently being shown on Criterion Channel.

I never think it’s going to become mainstream. My true hope is that we can at least be known as an independent porn culture making quality films that aren’t exploitative. That people understand that it exists, and that it’s an option apart from the mainstream porn websites.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Chuck Lorre has written a memoir, “Sitcom,” about his career

(Christopher Patey / For The Times)

How does Bonnie Garmus follow her blockbuster 2022 novel “Lessons in Chemistry”? With “Peck & Peck,” a “whimsical and winning ode to the written word, and send-up of the pretensions of its gatekeepers,” writes Leigh Haber.

Chuck Lorre, one of the most successful and prolific writers and producers in TV history, has written “Sitcom,” a memoir in which he reveals, among other things, his decade-long tenure as a card-carrying Scientologist. Writing the book “was cathartic,” he tells Mary McNamara. “There’s a little bit of therapy going on in this book. I got to say some things out loud that in the past I would have kept hidden because they were embarrassing.”

At a time when it seems like anger and hostility has become the fossil fuel of everyday life, author and conflict expert Priya Parker’s new book “The Art of Fighting” argues for civil and spirited debate as a balm for our troubled times. “As a conflict resolution facilitator for the last 25 years, I can say that healthy community needs healthy conflict,” Parker tells Margaret Wappler.

Finally, Maddie Connors talked to Michael Douglas about his new memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” a book about his life and career. “Your 80s may be a good time to share,” the 82-year-old actor tells Connors. “People interested in movies, we give them a certain insight into the process, and maybe they could learn something. For others, it’s just gossip.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Formerly a pop-up bookstand, Reverie Bookstand is a brick-and-mortar bookstore on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

(Reverie Bookstand)

Located on a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, Reverie Bookstand is doing its level best to buck the AI tsunami, selling used books created by humans in a variety of subjects. In an email exchange, owner Tim Horner tells us what’s selling in his store.

What prompted you to open the store?

I was driving by and I saw it was for lease. I had been selling books for some years as a scout for other bookstores, and also at flea markets where I would pop up with a ”bookstand.” So it wasn’t a brand new idea; I had always dreamt of it. The owner of the building was a part of a small team that ran a collective DIY venue and gallery called Echo Curio around 12 years ago. It has since shut down, but Echo Curio was a place I came to as a young person back in the day. So the landlord was sympathetic to the cause and the idea of having a bookstore here. So I went for it.

What genres does the store tend to emphasize?

I specialize in poetry, mysticism, occult and out-of-print secondhand books and paper goods. All the books here in the store are used books. So far it hasn’t been difficult to keep the shelves full, I know some spots.

Who are you customers?

The clientele here is diverse. Students, working-class people, artists, local neighborhood families, musicians and people from all walks of life who simply love books and reading. A thing I am grateful for is how kindhearted and empathetic (most) book people are. It gives me a lot of strength and motivation everyday to know that my book-buying addiction is not in vain but is actually going to some strange use in helping connect people with literature.

What’s selling right now?

The things that are selling the most are things California-related and writers from California especially — Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Octavia Butler.

Why do we still need bookstores when AI can write books for us?

I think bookstores are relevant still because we all need some type of human connection for our well-being, and books encourage that behavior. Whether it’s connecting with a space and people or connecting with authors, a bookstore is a place where you can actually browse for something and be in the moment with other people that are possibly interesting. The gesture alone validates itself in that you’re telling the world. I am open to ideas, things, places, people, and along the way you find a book you didn’t know existed, a nicer copy of something you already have, or a book you’ve been meaning to read but had forgotten about. And until this point there is no tangible way to browse for these things I have online yet and hopefully ever.

Reverie Bookstand is located at 1519 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

Maria Astorini, a retired character actress and a minor star, is 37 years late delivering her memoir. But the project, which she has tried her best to forget, has been pulled out from under the rug by her publisher. Forced to deliver a manuscript, Maria writes an autobiography clocking in at a shade over 200 pages.

The result is Elizabeth Castellano’s second novel “Proof of Progress,” a wry, poignant and very funny twirl through a life that swerves past triumph and failure, boredom and joy, public life and private sorrow. I recently spoke with her about Bloomingdale’s, Calvin Trillin, and how cellphones are the enemy of good fiction.

✍️ Author Chat

”Proof of Progress” traces the life of your protagonist, Maria Astorini, from childhood to her mid-60s. It reminded me of something Bob Dylan wrote recently about growing older, which is that you finally get rid of the illusion that life is under your control.

For Maria, there is a lot of serendipity that feels like fate, of being in the right place at the right moment, or meeting the right person, which sends her off in a different direction. I like that in a novel. It was also helpful to be writing primarily about an era without phones, so that she’s able to meet a lot of people.

We’re seeing this a lot in contemporary narratives: writers setting their stories in pre-phone eras, so their characters can actually interact with each other.

She’s talking to people, she’s meeting people, so she’s able to be sent on different paths. Even meeting her husband probably wouldn’t have happened with the phone.

“Proof of Progress” is Elizabeth Castellano’s second novel.

(Harper Collins / Carl Timpone)

You have written a very funny book, and funny books don’t get the respect they deserve.

Anytime you have humor in a book, you’re not taken quite as seriously. Even in Barnes & Noble, when you look for humor, it’s on the back wall or on the floor. And that’s where you find the David Sedaris books, which is crazy. My last book was about a beach town, so I got lumped in with the beach read group. I had people who were looking for a fun beach read and then they picked up my book, and it’s about zoning code violations. I’m happy that this book is being marketed as literary and humorous. I’m in better shape in that sense.

It’s really hard to write funny. Or is it?

The best way I can describe it is like a stand-up comedian having a notebook full of jokes and anecdotes and she has to put together an HBO special. Sometimes I just had one line of something funny. I had all these ideas and thoughts and different things from old books that I was writing. I tried to put all of it together and find a character that could tell this story, and the through line that I could create from all of this material. So I wrote it backwards and out of order.

Who do you think is funny? Who do you like to read?

J.D. Salinger, David Sedaris, Maria Semple. I love Calvin Trillin. I think he’s a great writer.

Your protagonist is very late on a contract and has to rush to get the book written, which gives the narrative propulsion and momentum.

I had a two-book deal, so while I was working on the publicity for my first book, I raced to finish this book. And when I was finished, I realized it didn’t work and had to throw out the whole manuscript. I saved maybe six or seven little anecdotes from that original book. So it took another year to write. That was the inspiration for “Proof of Progress.”

Your writing career is a bit like Maria’s acting career, in that you chanced upon it.

I was a theater major. I don’t think I took one English course. Then I graduated right into the Recession of 2008. There were no jobs. Eventually, I applied to be an apprentice buyer at Bloomingdale’s, even though I hate shopping. That was the last resort. Then I decided, maybe I’ll be a writer, because it felt like something that I could do. I wrote a lot of things that were rejected before I wrote my first book, “Save What’s Left” [2023]. And that’s probably why I wrote Maria the way I did. We zig, we zag, we endure.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Kyle MacLachlan’s new memoir is a funny, candid and self-aware reflection on his 40-year career in Hollywood.

(Christopher Patey / For The Times)

We loved him as Special Agent Cooper in “Twin Peaks” and as Jeffrey Beaumont in “Blue Velvet,” but according to Kyle Maclachlan’s new memoir, “Fictional Selves,” there is another unknown character: “Other Kyle,” the actor’s ever-present shadow figure. “There’s definitely another entity, an observer, the ego, the harder self,” MacLachlan tells Rachel Brodksy.

After a nine-year absence from fiction, John Green has returned with “Hollywood, Ending,” a darkly humorous show business cautionary tale that Green couldn’t have written “without spending a lot of time on film sets,” he tells Emily St. Martin. “I hope the book is a love letter to movies. But I also wanted to be honest about how difficult it is to make a work of art that, in order to be commercially successful, has to be loved by millions of people.”

Katya Suvorova’s memoir, “Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter,” is a “heart-wrenching tale of immigration” that “pulls back the velvety red curtain to reveal one story behind the oversexualized stereotypical post-Soviet mail-order bride narrative so ingrained in post-Cold War U.S. culture,” writes Diana Ruzova.

Finally, Vroman’s and Book Soup, two of L.A.’s most beloved bookstores, have been sold by longtime owner Joel Sheldon to tech executive Robert Hoffman, reports Suhauna Hussain.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Outpost Books is a new bookstore in South Pasadena.

(Simran Malik)

Walking into Outpost Books is like stepping into a smart book lover’s cozy den. With its southwestern-themed design and a well-curated selection of new and used books, the indie book store in South Pasadena already feels like home to this community of rabid book lovers. I spoke with owner Nicole Novembrino about her new store.

Why a bookstore?

I was a sales rep for a publisher of art books, but I looked at my life, wondering what I could do for a living that would give me real meaning and purpose. I love books, and so I decided to open a bookstore. It’s not easy, and you can second-guess yourself a million times along the way, or get a normal job. But I’m so glad I did it. Everyone in the neighborhood is so happy!

Why did you choose to open in South Pasadena?

I live in El Sereno nearby, and South Pasadena is such a great community. When we first opened, people were coming in and thanking us for opening in the neighborhood. There aren’t any other bookstores in this particular South Pasadena neighborhood. I definitely didn’t want to take any business away from other stores.

Pasadena loves its bookstores.

This is a very bookish community. The donations I’m getting from people are really smart volumes. I think I’ve had just one Nora Roberts book! The landlords are great, as well. They came to our opening and told me the store is all they could have dreamed of for the space, which is so sweet.

The kids section is really fun, with the tent and the fake tree stumps.

We have a lot of kids books with a southwestern theme. I’ve been collecting them over the years from my trips to the desert. You might find a book called “Armadillo Rodeo” in there.

How did you land on the western theme?

My mom is from New Mexico, so every family vacation was a trip to the Southwest, and I loved stopping and collecting things at the trading posts along the way. I wanted to give the store that kind of feel. I chose the name Outpost for that reason. It is a lived-in place where you can just hang out and find cool things and read.

Outpost Books, 1010 ½ Fair Oaks Ave., South Pasadena, (626) 399-0595