Submissions are open at @pleiadesmagazine for poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and translation! Check out their full guidelines at Duosuma. buff.ly/XnEcFxk 🖼️ from Pleiades #FriendsOfAssay #WritingCommunity #AssayJournal #OpenSubmissions #OpenCall

@triohousepress let's go ✨👨‍💻 #FriendsOfAssay #OpenReading #OpenCall #Submissions #CreativeWriting

"A funny thing happened on the way to the Global Village..." Miles Harvey argues that in the Information Age, all writers are travel writers. What can 19th-century philosopher William James teach us about navigating our modern narrative fault lines? Find out in Assay 2.2: buff.ly/skpZa7f

We are grieving the immense loss of Marjane Satrapi today. Our hearts go out to her loved ones. 🕊️🧵 Satrapi's blockbuster "Persepolis" fractured traditional binary narratives of history. She taught us how to look at the gaps, the margins, and the complex truths of exile.

"Art is not nature and shouldn't try to imitate it." Doug Carlson explores why Paul Gruchow and Brian Turner turned to abstract shapes to map the realities of depression and combat survival in Assay 1.2. A brilliant look at tactile space and reader participation in the memoir form. 🧵

We're focusing on flash interviews today! Take a glance at these wonderful tidbits from @amymonticello in this 2021 To Wit interview. Read here: buff.ly/cetW7Og #AssayJournal #AssayInterviewProject #ToWit #FlashInterviews #AmyMonticello #throwback

How do we document the intangible? In a piece for Assay 4.2, Corinna Cook dives deep into Daniel Janke’s film How People Got Fire, exploring the fascinating intersection of animation, oral history, and documentary poetics. Read the full analysis here: buff.ly/P7XxIkx

Feeling Human Again: Toward a Pedagogy of Radical Empathy by Stephanie Geudet is a pedagogy piece from Assay issue 2.2. Guedet explores how sharing personal narratives in the classroom can cultivate deep, transformative empathy among students. Read ➡️ buff.ly/xjnP9E4 #Assay #FreeResources

A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A blue whale’s heart is the size of a room. And the essay? The essay is the vessel that holds it all. 🪺 In her latest piece, Zoë Stark examines the beginning and the finality of the end. Step into the slipstream here: buff.ly/vPENH9f

Writer’s block? Stop brainstorming and start looking. 🔍 In Assay 12.2, Jill Christman teaches the "Writing the Tooth" method. It’s 30 minutes, no internet, just one object--and how she went from writing an essay about money to writing the raw, beautiful truth about motherhood. 🦷✨ 🔗 buff.ly/jPMz08K

"Old age is not a dead end. It is a territory." 🗺️ In "Mapping the Surprising Territory of Old Age," Lynn Z. Bloom sits down with several memoirists to map the complex, surprising, and often uncharted landscapes of aging. Dive in here: buff.ly/3nqUyKb

"writing rage is joyful, right, instinctual, unadulterated, and most of all, corrective." ⚡️ What does it mean for women, in particular, or other marginalized groups, to embrace anger in their craft? What's the generative potential? Come find out & rage with us: buff.ly/v8upg3W #AssayJournal

Our therapist: And what do we do when we're feeling overwhelmed by everything? Us: Read another essay! Therapist: *puts down spray bottle* that's...that's actually not a bad idea

"I find genre categories impossibly narrow," says author Samuel Ace in today's interview spotlight. Part essay, part memoir, and part collage, "I want to start by saying" is "a constellation of memory, personal and place-based histories..." Read the excellent interview here: buff.ly/Mo83kxO

Can erasure be a form of truth-telling? What is found in the space where words used to be? 🤔 Short examines Erin Dorney’s work in our latest issue to uncover an "ontology of ambivalence"—where the gaps in the text become the most vital parts of the essay. Dive into this study ⬇️ buff.ly/7zGLYhX

In Assay 12.2, David Lazar (@davidlazarwriter) explores the "indissolubly linked" roots of genre and gender. Lazar argues that the essay, much like queer identity, thrives on resistance to stability, categories, and normative standards. 🏳️‍🌈✨ 🔗 Read the full article here: buff.ly/RKuAVbT

Alright Bluesky--what's your absolute FAVORITE essay to teach/read and why? Curious minds want to know!

How can a single sentence contain the DNA of an entire essay? 🧬 In Assay 12.2, Max Rubin breaks down Bernard Cooper’s mastery of the "essayistic sentence." A deep dive into assertions, unanswerable questions, and the "folds and bones" of Cooper’s prose. Read the full analysis: buff.ly/TKFVYr5

"Allusiveness sprawls across all literature," writes William Gruber in today's spotlight for Assay Issue 12.2. 💃 From Laura Ingalls Wilder and Joan Didion, Gruber makes the case for allusiveness as "how literature keeps its past alive in its present." Read the full article here: buff.ly/HC1BlYm

Hi folks! Just a happy little reminder: we are moving our In the Classroom blog to Substack! Go follow assayjournal.substack.com for pedagogy hot takes and publication opportunities for grads! more wonderful content from our latest issue is coming next week! ✨📖 #AssayJournal #Substack

You have roughly 3 weeks to still submit your beautiful writing to our friends at @sundoglit! head to buff.ly/U4MtFh1 for more info! 📸 @sundoglit #FriendsOfAssay #OpenCall #Nonfiction #WritingSubmissions

Friendly reminder that we are moving our In the Classroom blog to Substack! Follow assayjournal.substack.com for #pedagogy and craft talk, as well as #publication opportunities for grads! #nonfiction #AssayJournal

How do images change the way we read? In this Assay #throwback, Elizabeth Paul dives into Eduardo Galeano’s "The Book of Embraces." Check out Paul's "Seeing in Embraces" here: buff.ly/NAAwKjG . 📸 by Miguel Alcântara on Unsplash #AssayJournal #ThrowbackThursday #CreativeNonfiction #EduardoGaleano

"Awe reminds us of our belonging in larger communities and ecosystems." 🌀 Can writers create essays that intentionally induce awe? Heather Lanier, w/ her article "The Science of Awe and the Essay" in Assay 12.2. asks just that. Read the full article to find out: buff.ly/r0XorC3

"I expect, always, to be judged harshly for my choices... But, strangely, often the opposite thing happens." In Assay 12.2, @bethannfennelly talks with Nicole S. Piasecki about the terrifying, wonderful vulnerability of publishing memoir. Check out the full interview: buff.ly/CewfsQy

What makes an essay successful? Atkins argues it’s the "tension everywhere present." In our new Spring 2026 issue (12.2), Atkins interrogates the "course of interpretive discovery" via White, Thoreau, and Sanders. A must-read, found here: buff.ly/LbmuDSm 📸 by NOAA on Unsplash #AssayJournal

🚧 PARDON THE CONSTRUCTION: We are migrating our In the Classroom blog to Substack! B/t issues of Assay, if you're looking for community, more pedagogy to think on, or publication (looking at you, grad students! 👀), we've got you covered. follow ⬇️ assayjournal.substack.com #AssayJournal #Blog

Our friends at Prairie Schooner are open for book reviews + interview submissions year-round! Head to their Submittable page for full guidelines. 📖🎙️ #FriendsOfAssay #PrairieSchooner #LitMag #bookreviews #interviews #opencall #submissions

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