We're excited to have a fresh, bright issue for you! ✨🌸 For Spring 2026 we're delighted to publish @jillchristman.bsky.social and her pedagogical essay "Writing the Tooth" It's a masterful essay and exercise on finding minute details 🦷 Head to assayjournal.com to check out the latest issue!

With spring comes the sun...and new Assay! ☀️ We're excited to have a certified fresh issue to share today! For Spring 2026 we're delighted to publish the likes of Lynn Z. Bloom, Heather Lanier, David Lazar, Christine Light, and Keene Short in our nonfiction articles. Head to our website for more!

Spring has sprung! We're so pleased to launch Assay's Spring 2026 issue today, full of brand new articles, conversations, interviews, and pedagogy--enjoy!

Our friends at @theflreview.bsky.social are still taking submissions for their Editors' Award in Creative Nonfiction! Details are below. 👇 #FriendsOfAssay #OpenSubmissions #CallToWrite #CNF #Nonfiction #EssaysThatMatter #LitMag #FLReview #FloridaReview #writing #contest

In his 2017 piece for @AssayJournal, @taybro1987 breaks down Brian Doyle’s "Dawn and Mary." It’s a masterclass in powerful minimalism. Read the full craft analysis here: buff.ly/CUFRqMT 📸 peiqi Gu on Unsplash #AssayJournal #AssaySpotlight #SandyHook #EssaysThatMatter #CreativeNonfiction #LitMag

"Write what you aren’t yet ready to speak," says Christine Cusick in our 2021 To Wit Flash interview. This is a brief but wonderful deep dive into how we map our lives through prose. 📝 Read the flash interview here: buff.ly/VS27wis 📸 Nik on Unsplash #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject

How does Gen AI make meaning for CNF students? Myers and Ballenger make the case for moderated AI in the classroom in Assay 11.2 Read the article here: buff.ly/BR0SmZ3 📸 Jaime Gusmao on Unsplash #AssayJournal #Pedagogy #Nonfiction #EssaysThatMatter #TeacherResources #FreeTeachingResources

Hey Bluesky, what's the most unhinged nonfiction essay you've ever read?

The Oxford American is now accepting pitches for their special Summer/Fall 2026 double issue dedicated to Home! For full details visit buff.ly/izPRyaN Submissions are taken only through Submittable Submissions will close on April 3. 📸 @oxfordamerican #FriendsOfAssay #WritingCommunity

In today's #throwback, Colleen Hennessy dives into the role of Irish nonfiction in the #RepealThe8th campaign, highlighting how writers like @sineadgleeson & @TaraFlynn broke decades of silence. Read the article here in Assay 7.1: buff.ly/mHVBX1V 📸 New York Public Library #AssayJournal

What is a "rightly shaped" vehicle for personal truth? Natalie Villacorta explores the rise of #autofiction as the ultimate tool for women writers in Assay 6.2, pointing to Virginia Woolfe, Sheila Heti, and others as example. 📖 Read more here: buff.ly/UWg7gki 📸 courtesy of Canva #AssayJournal

Madhushree Ghosh's memoir "Khabaar" is a beautiful book that blends and braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. 🍽️ Read her 2023 Interview Project chat here: buff.ly/KdN1jTe #AssayJournal #Khabaar #AssayInterviewProject #memoir #food

Kelly K. Ferguson argues in Assay 7.2 that the Dark Side has merit-- while corporate structures help us manage a digital shift, it's our quirks and life experiences that students actually need in the classroom. 😈⚔️ Read here: buff.ly/PQEuFTN #AssayJournal #MondayPedagogy #InstructionalDesign

What do we impose on our work in the revision process after a draft is complete? Chris Thornton examines this in Assay 2.1's "Ted Kooser's "Hands": On Amobae, Empathy, and Poetic Prose ." 🪼 Read the article here: buff.ly/5GCmHYE Photo by David Clode #AssayJournal #ThrowbackThursday #Nonfiction

Today's Interview Project highlight focuses the spotlight on Black queer, femme power. ✊🏾🌈 Cicely Belle Blain is a Black/mixed, queer femme, and their 2020 debut "Burning Sugar" exposes colonization and its impact on Black bodies. Read the interview here: buff.ly/3IvOyHH #AssayJournal #interview

"Armed with a pack of blank note cards, I begin to copy quotations...my thoughts fall into a succession of kaleidoscopic patterns, as various as the voices around me," writes Jacqueline Doyle in Assay 4.1. Read it here: buff.ly/V4fHFuw 📸 Kelsy Gagnebin (Unsplash) #AssayJournal #Pedagogy #Nonfic

Who's headed to AWP in Baltimore this year? Come see our EIC Karen Babine for either a panel on creating literary magazines with students, or a signing of her recent release, THE ALLURE OF ELSEWHERE! Head to Rm 320, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center, for the panel. The Milkweed booth is 830/832

Today's Spotlight is Floreani's wonderful "Sewing and Telling" from Assay 6.1. Floreani "articulates the potential subversions of our cultural assumptions about what we make—or don’t." 🪡 Read it here: buff.ly/G99lclQ 📸 by Art Institute of Chicago #AssayJournal #AssaySpotlight #Nonfiction #CNF

We're thinking about flash today--flash interviews, that is! Joni Tevis covers a lot of ground in this quick chat from 2021. Read today's interview here: buff.ly/9we1mNP 📸 courtesy of jonitevis.com #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #CNF #EssaysThatMatter #LitMag

Today's pedagogy comes from Terry Thaxton in Assay 5.1, who revolutionizes her workshop by letting her students go wild and create their own workshop. Read today's pedagogy article here: buff.ly/trjaTaj 📸 by Callum Eddings on Unsplash #AssayJournal #pedagogy #restructuing #remake #workshop

Our friends are open for submissions! Fourth Genre's Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize and Multimedia Essay Contest are both now open! Submissions are due by April 15. Head to fourthgenre.org for more info 📸 by @fourthgenre #AssayJournal #Nonfiction #FriendsOfAssay #Contest

For today's Wednesday Spotlight, let's take a look at Issue 2.2, where Jie Liu, a Chinese fiction writer with four books out for children, examines the impact of the video essay in "Thirteen Canada Geese." 🪿 Read it here: buff.ly/wCVJyWh 📸 by Aboodi Vesakaran on Unsplash #AssayJournal #videoessay

In our 2025 interview with Laura Julier, former editor of Fourth Genre, Laura speaks about her debut memoir, "Off Izaak Walton Road," her literary touchstones, and more from a book steeped in loss and how to walk alongside it. Read the interview here: buff.ly/XAKvo70 #AssayJournal #Interview #CNF

In our most recent issue of Assay with Amy Garrett Brown's "Teaching the Researched Family...", Brown reimagines the family profile essay & shows how she taught her students to mine their histories and cultures for a researched family profile. Read it here: buff.ly/T1vGX6g #AssayJournal #CNF

this weekend bootcamp focused on the ethics of memory in nonfiction looks to be a blast! 3-session weekend Online, Fri 2/27 3-5p PT/6-8p ET + Sa-Su 2/28-3/1 11a-1p PT/2-4p ET. Registration link: buff.ly/zF4X1hJ 📸 by @caravanwriterscollective #AssayJournal #FriendsofAssay #bootcamp #nonfiction

For today's #ThrowbackThursday, let's journey back to the time of the Walkman & investigate the quotidian with "Containing the Lives of Ordinary Things" from Assay 4.2. Read it all here: buff.ly/KJKkfuL 📸 by Florian Schmetz on Unsplash #AssayJournal #throwbacks #quotidian #nonfiction

In his piece for Assay issue 8.2, Michael Cox explores a masterclass in how a single sentence and a deleted paragraph can change the entire soul of a story. Read the full article here: buff.ly/9AhSeL4 Photo by Foto Pettine on Unsplash #AssayJournal #AssaySpotlight #LiteraryCriticism #Nonfiction

For Kathryn Nuernberger, research is baked into her writing practice and ritual, and she encourages other writers to embrace this in today's Interview Project highlight. Read the full conversation here: buff.ly/Wb9vmvb 📸 by by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #CNF

Let's revisit Erin Fogarty Owen’s essay “How to Write Well About Death” from Assay issue 10.1. Owen offers tools like the “CPR Method” to help authors connect with readers. 💀 Read the complete article here: buff.ly/R6Xpw5C Photo by Ron Szalata on Unsplash #AssayJournal #ThrowbackThurs #CNF

In Assay 2.1, Daniel Nester interrogates his personal relationship with the term "working class memoir," ultimately finding his own understanding of what it means to be a "straddler memoirist." Read the full article here: buff.ly/hU60Gm6 📸 by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash #AssayJournal #Spotlights

This week we’re pulling from the archives with an interview of Sumana Roy, conducted by Sayantani Dasgupta. Read the complete interview here: buff.ly/aYMDNvX 📸 by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #Interview #NonfictionBooks #EssayBooks #CreativeNonfiction

We're salivating over Mike Catron's "There’s No Such Thing as Too Much of Jason Sheehan’s “There’s No Such Thing As Too Much Barbecue”: A Pedagogical Discussion" from Assay 8.1. Read it here: buff.ly/90UaeRm 📸 by Emerson Vieira on Unsplash #AssayJournal #Pedagogy #Nonfiction #EssaysThatMatter

Looking for the perfect rainy day activity? Got a new reading list you're excited to try out w/ your students? Consider staying in and submitting to Assay! 🌦️ View our full submission guidelines and submit your work here: buff.ly/5IAc4Qz #AssayJournal #Nonfiction #OpenSubmissions #Pedagogy

For today's Friends spotlight, we're spotlighting The Palisades Review, a journal founded in 2022 & currently open for nonfic submissions of 1000 words or less. Head to their website at buff.ly/BikJD8q to learn more! 📸 Palisades Review #AssayJournal #LitMag #OpenSubmissions #community #nonfiction

For today's Throwback we're taking lessons from Brian Doyle's uncertainty and Ana Maria Spagna's astute observations in "On 'How We Wrestle is Who We Are' from Assay 4.1. 🫀 Read the full article here: buff.ly/IaYVIuc #AssayJournal #ThrowbackThursday #Nonfiction #analysis #craft

This week we are pulling from Assay 3.1 for today's article spotlight. Written by Lynn Z. Bloom, "The Great American Potluck Party" draws upon a holiday tradition for metaphor & multiple sources when defining the essay. Read Bloom in full here: buff.ly/qmVbgIA #AssayJournal #AssaySpotlights #CNF

"The artistry and the magic happen in the selection and arrangement of the materials." -Donovan Hohn, on comparing Joseph Cornell boxes to nonfiction essays Read Donovan's full 2020 full interview here: buff.ly/pf3yxUk 📸 lucidfrenzy.blogspot.com #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #Interview

Look back w/ us on our first issue w/ Robert Brooke's "Teaching 'Rhetoric: The Essay.'" Brooke focuses on the concept of the "life soundtrack essay" & "application essay" to teach about nonfiction forms. 🔗 buff.ly/33FT7Ab 📸 The New York Public Library (Unsplash) #AssayJournal #Pedagogy #CNF

*opens internet* *closes internet* *reads an essay to feel something*

For today's syllabi Sunday, we're focusing on Walters's "Memoir and Journal Writing" course from University of Minnesota Duluth. Read the full syllabus here: buff.ly/4Dmdk0j Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash #AssayJournal #SyllabiSunday #nonfiction #memoir #journal #CNF #literaryjournalism

Let your writing career grow stronger--submit to us! Assay’s submissions are open year-round, so submitting with us is always the right time. View our full submission guidelines and submit your work here: buff.ly/gKWktDt #AssayJournal #SubmissionsOpen 📸 by Casey Horner on Unsplash

For #FriendsOfAssay today, we're focusing on Bright Flash Literary Review. Submissions of your best compelling memoir (and flash fiction) are accepted on a rolling basis. Head to their website at buff.ly/UrWqFq5 for more info. #AssayJournal #FriendsOfAssay #BrightFlashLiteraryReview

For Throwback Thursday we're spotlighting Ashley Espinoza's "A Las Mujeres: Hybrid Identities in Latina Memoir" from Assay 9.1. Espinoza examines Latina identity and how to hold & work with hybrid identity within memoir. Read the full article here: buff.ly/LnEfzkW #AssayJournal #ThrowbackThursday

Today, we're focusing on children and their often underestimated power. In Assay issue 9.2, Jeannine Ouellette explores why child narrators are uniquely effective in adult creative nonfiction. Read Ouellette's article here: buff.ly/tUlStDu #AssayJournal #ArticleSpotlights #Nonfiction

Today we're spotlighting Vivian Wagner's "Crafting Digression" from Assay 5.1. Wagner argues that gamification can lead to modes of digression that are novel and new for creatives. 🎮 Read the full interview here: buff.ly/Jd2pHUV #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #Interview #Gamification

Celebrate pedagogy this Monday with us by diving into D. Shane Combs's "Go Craft Yourself: Conflict, Meaning, and Immediacies Through J. Cole’s 'Let Nas Down,'" where Cole's lyrics teach the difference between first impulses and crafted responses. Read here: buff.ly/PbCkesv #pedagogy #nonfiction

What compels people to make courageous decisions or take actions that are countercultural? Answer this question and more this Syllabi Sunday. Read the full syllabus here: buff.ly/f4pWjIH Photo by Mykhailo Amirdzhanian on Unsplash #AssayJournal #Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #CNF

The cold is biting but we are staying warm! Help Assay grow by submitting your work, and together we’ll nurture the voices that help others burn brighter. View our full submission guidelines and submit your work here: buff.ly/gKWktDt Photo by Martin Grazer on Unsplash

In solidarity with MN's Day of Truth and Freedom general strike scheduled for Friday, Jan 23, Assay's offices are closed. Normal hours resume Saturday. Our contributors are wonderfully diverse, & Assay would not thrive without their scholarship. We will always amplify your voices. #ICEOutMN

We’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Anand Prahlad. Prahlad’s work When We Cease to Understand the World, explores his use of music, science, memoir, and cultural criticism to rethink how narrative and knowledge intersect. Listen here: buff.ly/DUW015Y