sold

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.”

They bought a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka and have been travelling ever since

A couple say they have saved around £36,000 by ditching the UK to travel the world with their children while living out of two suitcases on a budget of just £30 a day.

Ruth and Steven Rowe “sold everything” they owned and bought a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka back in 2023 and have been travelling ever since. They decided to embark upon their globe-trotting adventure after wanting more time with their two children before they started nursery and school.

Ruth was also not a fan of the cold and wet British weather, so the pair are now world-schooling their kids, Aurora, four, and Atlas, three, in exotic locations instead. The family have already been to 17 different countries, ticking off bucket-list destinations such as Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Indonesia.

Saving thousands of pounds a year

They stay four weeks at a time in Airbnbs and have visited the likes of Thailand, Malaysia, Cyprus, USA, Colombia and Peru – all while saving around £12,000 a year. They have spent the last five months living and travelling around India and next year they plan to tour 10 more countries across Europe in a campervan.

Ruth, 34, and Steven, 35, had been renting a barn conversion in the village of Eardisley, Herefordshire, and had both children during the Covid-19 pandemic. But they had always thought about travelling full-time, so they sold “pretty much everything” on Facebook Marketplace or via car boot sales and set off with a couple of suitcases of clothes and a few toys.

They currently have no plans to return full-time and want to continue world schooling – while spending around £2,000 a month, compared to £3,000 back in the UK.

Ruth said: “We had travelled before and for us it got to the stage where we were going to put the kids into nursery and it just didn’t feel like the right time. We wanted more time with them as we know those early years are precious, so we thought, why not just do it? So we did.

“We sold pretty much everything we owned, which was an exhilarating experience – we mainly sold it through Facebook Marketplace and car boot sales. So our car, our furniture, everything but a couple of memory boxes with some of the children’s things inside and a few clothes.

“We set off at the start with two big suitcases – a medium and a small one – and a stroller. And since then we’ve downsized to just two suitcases – it is really surprising how little you really need.

“Possessions don’t make you happy, life experiences do. We bought a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka not knowing if or when we were coming back and we haven’t stopped since.

“We’ve been travelling full-time ever since, slow-exploring the world as a family, while my husband runs his coaching business remotely and we embrace world schooling on the road. It’s been beautiful, chaotic, challenging and incredibly freeing.”

Children educated along the way

The couple say their children are now educated through “life experiences” – whether that be picking up Spanish in Latin America or learning about volcanoes while hiking in Peru. They say giving the kids no screen time whatsoever on their travels has helped them to become more patient and creative.

Ruth added: “They are also learning counting through things like paying a tuk-tuk driver in different currencies and the first time Aurora ever wrote her name was in sand on a beach with a stick. We give them no screen time at all, which I think has taught them patience on their travels and to be more creative when they are bored sitting on a bus.

“They thought the TV back home was a radio, as we’d only use it for Spotify, and we think that’s allowed their imagination to flourish. I have just seen their confidence grow so much and of course there’s no way of really telling how they would have been at home, but they are just so open and talk to anyone – young and old.

“I will sit down and teach them some reading and phonics and writing, but we’re not rigid with it and it’s still very much about learning through playing. It wasn’t a case of we hated the UK – we just love the world. But I was never a fan of the cold and rain, so that is something I don’t miss. The only thing I miss is friends and family and also British chocolate.”

How they support themselves on travels

The couple also support themselves financially via Steven’s online coaching business, which he can still run wherever they are in the world.

Steven said: “These positive environments have brought such positive developments so far in our children. Atlas was swimming independently at two.

“This way, they get one-to-one without being part of the larger school system, which we have no issue with, we just see the benefits from doing it this way. We make sure the children are at the centre of what we do, we always research kids’ clubs and activities wherever we stay.

“They are loving learning about all the wildlife too – we had iguanas and sloths outside our doors in Costa Rica. Aurora had surf lessons in Bali and will be sandboarding in the Peruvian desert, it’s magical for them. We use Airbnbs mainly, but I’ve been working out of little cupboards in some places – it has been challenging at times, but we’re in a fortunate position.”

The countries they have visited so far

Sri Lanka

Indonesia

Thailand

Malaysia

Cyprus

USA

Guatemala

Costa Rica

Colombia

Ecuador

Peru

Bolivia

Brazil

India

Nepal

Portugal

Morocco

Follow their travels via Instagram.