Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies
@assayjournal.bsky.social
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Assay publishes the best critical, pedagogical, and craft-conversational work exploring everything #nonfiction Posts by Jay Kibble and @karenbabine
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The final article in Assay 12.1, Jeff Porter’s essay “The History and Poetics of the Essay” traces how the essay’s shape has morphed across eras and how its tension between freedom and constraint makes it unique.

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#EssaysThatMatter #LitMag
Our second Pedagogy piece in Assay 12.1, Jessica Handler’s essay “On Teaching Adrienne Rich” reflects on the possibilities and challenges of teaching a poet and activist whose work centers on power, identity, and resistance.

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#Pedagogy
The leaves are falling, and so are excuses not to submit! 🍂
Assay is open for submissions! Send us your best work in nonfiction studies, pedagogy, or reviews this season.

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

#SubmissionsOpen #SubmitYourWork #Pedagogy
Booth Literary Journal is currently accepting submissions until midnight on November 30th. 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 #CreativeNonfiction
Our second Pedagogy piece in Assay 12.1 is Kathryn Nuernberger’s essay “Research as Ritual.” In it, Nuernberger reconceives research as an embodied, daily practice

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#EssaysThatMatter #CreativeNonfiction #NewIssue #MagazineLaunch #Pedagogy
In Assay 12.1, Megan Connolly’s essay “A Team in the Face of the World” explores how animal companions become more than supporting characters, they take on agency, presence, and emotional gravitas.

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#EssaysThatMatter#LitMag#MagazineLaunch
In issue 12.1 of Assay, Amy Garrett Brown’s pedagogy focused essay “Teaching the Researched Family-Profile Essay as Meaningful, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Counterstory” makes a powerful case for bringing identity, history, and purpose into the classroom.

Read it here:
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The first conversation piece in Assay 12.1 is Desirae Matherly’s “In Defense of Navel Gazing.”

“Navel-gazing as a criticism is most often applied to works that focus merely on the self and do not look out from it."

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#CreativeNonfiction
This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting a Nonfiction Pedagogy course from the Assay syllabi bank. Seminar in Composition and Creative Writing Pedagogy by Dr. Julia Platt.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #FreeTeachingResources #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/FoL6Amj

#SubmissionsOpen #LitMag
Barely South Review is accepting submissions for one more month until November 1st!

Barely South Review is an online biannual publication staffed by students of the MFA program at Old Dominion University.

Read the complete guidelines and submit here:
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#SubmitYourWork
Amy Bonnaffons offers “Bodies of Text: On the Lyric Essay,” for Assay 12.1. She examines how lyric essays’ use of white space, shifts in voice, and associative leaps invite readers into the text.

Read it here or visit the link in our bio:
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#LitMag #Nonfiction #NewIssue
The pedagogy of Assay Issue 12.1!

🗣️Amy Garrett Brown
✏️Teaching the Researched Family Profile as Meaningful Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Counterstory

🗣️Jessica Handler
✏️On Teaching Adrienne Rich

Read them here:
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#AssayJournal #Pedagogy #Interviews #Nonfiction #NewIssue
The conversations of Assay Issue 12.1!

🗣️Desirae Matherly
✏️In Defense of Navel Gazing

🗣️Kathryn Nuernberger
✏️Research as Ritual

🗣️Molly Tompkins
✏️Interview with Margaret Juhae Lee

Read them here:
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#AssayJournal #Conversations #Interviews #Nonfiction #NewIssue #MagazineLaunch
The articles of Assay Issue 12.1!

🗣️Amy Bonnaffons
✏️Bodies of Text: On the Lyric Essay

🗣️Megan Connolly
✏️A Team in the Face of the World: Dogs as Narrative Agents in Memoirs about Life after Loss

🗣️Jeff Porter
✏️The History and Poetics of the Essay

Read them here:
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#NewIssue
Happy October! Assay Issue 12.1 (Fall 2025) is here, full of delightful new nonfiction scholarship and pedagogy!

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#AssayJournal #SubmissionsOpen #SubmitYourWork #Pedagogy #Nonfiction #Interviews #LiteraryCriticism #TeachingResources #NewIssue #MagazineLaunch
This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Monica Drake. The interview centers on Drake’s novel Clown Girl.

“I’m interested in how we make meaning and make sense of our lives."

Read complete interview here:
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#Interview #Nonfiction
This Pedagogy Monday we are highlighting Susan M. Stabile’s “Architectures of Revision.” In this essay, Stabile explores revision not just as a stage in writing but as a way of thinking.

Read the rest here:
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#Pedagogy #Nonfiction #EssaysThatMatter #FreeTeachingResources #Revision
This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting the course Writing & Rhetoric: Creative Composition by Professor Micah McCrary.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#AssayJournal #Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #CreativeNonfiction #Composition #Workshop #CreativeWriting
Your weekly reminder to consider Assay when sending out submissions this upcoming fall!

View our full submission guidelines and submit your work here: buff.ly/FoL6Amj

Or visit the link in our bio!

#SubmissionsOpen #SubmitYourWork #Pedagogy #Nonfiction #Interviews #TeachingResources
Gulf Coast Literary Journal is now open for submission till March 1.

Gulf Coast Literary Journal is a biannual publication (April and October) of multi genre writing as well as visual art and critical art writing..

Read complete guidelines and submit here: buff.ly/oL5rsSq

#SubmissionsOpen
This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting Laura Valeri’s essay “Tell Tale Interviews: Lessons in True-Life Trauma Narratives Gleaned from Jennifer Fox’s The Tale.”

“We are different people as we move through time."

Read the article here: buff.ly/7c6r23i

#ThrowbackThursday #CreativeNonfiction
This week we’re pulling from the Assay Interview Project archives with an interview of Michael Martone. The interview centers on Martone’s playful and unconventional approach to nonfiction, where form often bends, blurs, and reinvents itself.

Read the interview here:
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#Interview
This Pedagogy Monday we are highlighting Terry Ann Thaxton’s “Workshop Wild.” In this piece, Thaxton reimagines the traditional writing workshop, inviting students to embrace wildness, risk, and vulnerability in their creative process.

Read it here:
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#Pedagogy #TeacherResources
This Syllabus Sunday we are highlighting a Form & Theory course from the Assay syllabi bank. Advanced Creative Nonfiction Prose: On Structure by Professor Julia Šukys.

Read the full syllabus here:
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#AssayJournal #Syllabus #TeacherResources #LessonPlans #FreeTeachingResources