Episode 16: Lucy Biederman - “Koch Money, Catapult, Capital, and Real Human Language”

Hilary talks to friend of the pod Lucy Biederman to get her updated thoughts on the presence of Koch money in literary publishing—specifically, how the independent press Catapult, which has also acquired the great indies Soft Skull and Counterpoint, belongs to co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Koch, who is the daughter of Charles Koch (truly not a “black sheep” of the Koch family, though you’ve probably heard her called that). This episode was recorded before SPD closed but we gotta say this discussion of funding and literary independence and obstinance—and what happens when economic forces sever networks of longstanding relationships—seems unfortunately relevant in that context. Along the way we talk about excess and shit, paychecks and evil, class and how to try to write it, vulnerability and mutuality, Phyllis Schlafly, Succession, The Office, and what we as writers owe each other.

The writer’s strike mentioned is of course the spring 2023 WGA strike for film & TV writers. The Thoreau quote Hilary fails to remember is: “Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life,” which she learned courtesy of Peter Molin.

Sign up for Lucy’s brilliant newsletter “The Boredom & the Horror & the Glory” here. And here’s her terrific book The Walmart Book of the Dead. 

And this ep needs a lot of links: Lucy & Hilary’s previous essays on Catapult and Elizabeth Koch are in Fence here and here. Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right is here, and here’s Christopher Leonard’s Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.The New York Times profile of Elizabeth Koch, her nonprofit Unlikely Collaborators, and the “Perception Box” may be enjoyed here. The Daily Beast’s follow-up reporting on Unlikely Collaborators and how it “received tens of millions from [Elizabeth Koch’s] family’s right-wing network last year and gave away less than $600,000” is here. We talk a bunch about a Guardianarticle on Chase Koch (son of Charles) and the venture “Stand Together Music.” Coverage of Catapult closing its classes and magazine appeared in Publishers Weeklyamong other places. Thanks to all these journalists.

To put the problems of Koch money in literary publishing in context, we think about the Sackler family, their involvement in the art world, and Nan Goldin’s beautiful acts of protest. We owe a big debt to Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty and Laura Poitras’s 2022 documentary on Nan Goldin, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.