At Catapult, Miranda Popkey explores gender in society and in literature, recalling her own journey as an emerging writer. Her job and financial status provided her little time to pursue her true passion, being an ‘art monster.’ She finds that marrying her husband ultimately put her closer to her dreams. But as a new wife, Popkey begins to wonder why ambitious wives are always portrayed so poorly in literature:

Around the time I got married, I learned that New York Review Books Classics was reissuing two novels about men seduced by women who then destroy them: Jakob Wasserman’s My Marriage, about a novelist whose life is ruined by a delusional, impractical wife, at once strong-willed and over-eager to please; and Elliott Chaze’s Black Wings Has My Angel, about an ex-con who falls in love with a money-hungry prostitute (she robs him, early on in the novel) and ends up on death row.