Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies

This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Sumana Roy. In the conversation, Roy reflects on her book How I Became a Tree, a genre-blending journey into nature, memory, and identity.

Read the complete interview here:
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#Interview #Writer

Let your ideas snow! ⛄️ Assay is open for submissions, and we’re looking for sharp, thoughtful nonfiction scholarship to brighten the winter months. We hope to see your submission in our inbox!

Submit your work here: buff.ly/SKO12UV

#SubmissionsOpen#Pedagogy#Nonfiction#Interviews#TeachingResources

Time is closing in! The Muleskinner Journal is closing submissions for their sixteenth journal on December 15th. Check out some of their guidelines below and visit their website to submit your work.

Read their complete guidelines and submit here:
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#SubmitYourWork #SubmissionsOpen

This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting Erin Fogarty Owen’s essay “How to Write Well About Death." Owen examines the craft of writing about death with honesty, care, and humility, arguing that confronting mortality head-on is essential for writers.

Read here:
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#ThrowbackThursday

This week we’re shining a spotlight on Jennifer Lang’s essay “When Worlds Collide: Writers Exploring Their Personal Narrative in Context” from Assay 3.2. Lang reflects on how personal life, family, and identity can’t be disentangled from global politics and history.

Read it here:
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This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Melanie Hoffert, conducted by Lisa Streckert. In this conversation, Hoffert reflects on writing her memoir Prairie Silence.

Read the complete interview here:
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#Interview#CreativeNonfiction#Writer

This Pedagogy Monday, we’re highlighting Kozbi Simmons’s “Literacy as Emancipation.” Simmons argues that literacy isn’t just a skill, it’s a form of freedom, identity, and survival for colored students marginalized by traditional English curricula.

Read it here:
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#Pedagogy

Don’t forget about Assay this fall! We’re coming up on the perfect weather to stay indoors with a hot beverage and submit to literary journals. We hope to see your submission in our inbox!

View our full submission guidelines and submit your work here: buff.ly/rRryWpS

#SubmissionsOpen #LitMag

This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting Assay issue 1.1 with Ned Stuckey‑French’s essay “Our Queer Little Hybrid Thing.”

“The essay has also gotten lost under the big tent of terms..."

Read the complete article here:
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#ThrowbackThursday #CreativeNonfiction #CreativeWriting #Queer

This week we’re shining a spotlight on Ashley Anderson’s essay “Give Them Space: Memoir as a Site for Processing Readers’ Grief” from Assay issue 10.1.

“Grief is an experience that needs space..."

Read the complete article here:
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#Nonfiction#CreativeNonfiction#Grief#Memoir#Memory

This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Maggie Paxson.

“‘Who does what with whom?’ is a foundational question."

Read the complete interview here:
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#Interview#NonfictionBooks#CreativeNonfiction#AuthorInterview#Anthropology#Narrative

We’re highlighting Jacqueline Doyle’s essay “Shuffling the Cards: I Think Back Through Judith Ortiz Cofer” from Assay issue 4.1. In this piece, Doyle invites educators to re-deal the deck of narrative inheritance.

Read more here:
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#Pedagogy #Nonfiction #TeacherResources

This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting a creative writing workshop course from the Assay syllabi bank. The Personal Essay by Professor Deborah Thompson.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #FreeTeachingResources #CreativeNonfiction #Teaching

As we close down spooky week, we want to remind you that Assay is open for submissions year round! We’re seeking essays, pedagogy, and conversations that engage deeply with the craft, history, and theory of nonfiction - spooky and non-spooky!

Submit your work here: buff.ly/8BXEzxI

#SubmissionsOpen

Quotidiana.org is back! Good news for writers, readers, and teachers of creative nonfiction! Quotidiana.org, the online essay anthology, is back. If you’ve tried to access our essays in the past year or so, you likely have noticed an image-propagation problem, with our pages marred by repeating author photos in the background of the text, making things nigh unreadable. We’ve finally figured out the issue (degraded HTML that browsers no longer rendered correctly) and fixed the problem. Once more, you can read, assign, and enjoy Quotidiana.org’s essays! Woot!

Quotidiana.org is back! We're so excited that this magnificent nonfiction is resource is back up and running--check it out this from Patrick Madden!

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For spooky week we’re highlighting a literary magazine with a scary short submission period! The Stinging Fly is getting ready to open for submissions starting November 4th and lasting only a short 2 weeks. Spooky!

Read their complete guidelines and submit here:
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#SubmissionsOpen

This spooky week Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting Assay issue 7.1 with August Owens Grimm’s essay “Haunted Memoir.” In this piece, Grimm explores how memoir can become a form of ghost story.

Read the complete article here:
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#ThrowbackThursday#Nonfiction#CreativeWriting#Spooky

This spooky week we’re shining a spotlight on Allison Ellis’s essay “Nonfiction Ghost Hunting” from Assay issue 8.1. In this piece, Ellis ventures into the eerie intersection of nonfiction and the supernatural.

Read it here:
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#EssaysThatMatter #Nonfiction #GhostStories #Spooky

This spooky week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Gail Griffin. In this chilling conversation, Griffin delves into her book “The Events of October: Murder-Suicide on a Small Campus.”

Read the complete interview here:
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#Interview

This spooky week’s Pedagogy Monday we’re revisiting Wendy Ryden’s essay “Liminally True: Creative Nonfiction as Transformative Thirdspace” from Assay issue 6.1.

Read it here:
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#Pedagogy #Nonfiction #TeacherResources #FreeTeachingResources #SpookyWeek #LiminalSpace #Transformation

👻Today marks the first day of spooky week at Assay! 👻

This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting a Special Topics course from the Assay syllabi bank, an Honors Seminar with a theme of True Crime taught by Professor Amy Monticello.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#Syllabus #ForTeachers

Autumn is the season for reflection… and for sending out your best work! As the leaves turn, we invite you to share your essays in nonfiction with Assay. Let your words fall into place this season 😊

View our submission guidelines and submit here: buff.ly/7XsiSq4

#SubmissionsOpen

It’s getting down to the wire! Atlantic Northeast Literary Journal is closing submissions for their Winter issue on October 31st.

Read their complete guidelines and submit here:
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#SubmitYourWork #SubmissionsOpen #CreativeNonfiction #Nonfiction #AtlanticNortheast #LitMag #LitJournal

This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting Assay issue 2.2 with William Bradley’s conversation piece “On the Pleasure of Hazlitt.”

“But I have to be honest—I enjoy hating things that suck.”

Read it here:
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#ThrowbackThursday #EssaysThatMatter #CreativeNonfiction #LitMag #Nonfiction

This week we’re shining a spotlight on Joanna Eleftheriou’s essay “Is Genre Ever New? Theorizing the Lyric Essay in Its Historical Context” from Assay 4.1.

Read the complete article here:
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#Spotlights #EssaysThatMatter #Nonfiction #CreativeNonfiction #Genre #Narrative #Poetry #Prose

This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Debra Monroe conducted by Heidi Czerwiec.

“I wanted an anthology that reflected the genre now."

Read the complete interview here:
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#Interview #EssayBooks #CreativeNonfiction #Anthology #Writing

This Pedagogy Monday we’re highlighting Freesia McKee’s “Where and How We Might Teach Hybrid: A Pedagogical Review of Kazim Ali’s Silver Road.” McKee examines how Ali’s hybrid work can inspire classrooms to blur the boundaries between genres.

Read more here:
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#Pedagogy #LitMag

This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting a Literary Editing course from the Assay syllabi bank. Literary Editing and Publishing by Professor Dinty W. Moore.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #FreeTeachingResources #CreativeNonfiction #Pedagogy

As the semester settles in and the air turns crisp, it’s the perfect time to submit to Assay! We’re seeking essays, pedagogy, and conversations that engage deeply with the craft, history, and theory of nonfiction.

Submit your work here: buff.ly/7XsiSq4

#SubmissionsOpen

In our final piece of Assay 12.1, Molly Tompkins interviews Margaret Juhae Lee on her memoir Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, which unearths her grandfather’s imprisonment during Japan’s occupation of Korea.

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#LitMag #Interview