Today we're celebrating some of the interviews from Assay 13.1, including the amazing Wes Jamison and his work "My Corpse Inside."

Welcome back to "Proctoring the Essay!" Today's post honors Gloria Steinem and William Gass. @notthatjohnproctor writes: "I actually just read one of these essays this past week, and it referred to the other.

Welcome back to "Proctoring the Essay," our series on #BestAmericanEssays from @notthatjohnproctor. Today Proctor is focusing on Malcolm Gladwell's "The Crooked Ladder" (2015) and Dawn Lundy Martin's "When a Person Goes Missing" (2019).

We heard the news, and we're devastated. Thank you, Catapult Book Group, for all of your hard work and determination to get amazing stories into the world. While your operations are ceasing Oct 30, you'll forever remain in our ❤️. #FriendsOfAssay #closing #sadnews #publishingnews buff.ly/por2gu1

Hello hello hello! It's Submission Saturday! We need your work, folks! Please head to buff.ly/1SK09UF for details! #AssayJournal #Pedagogy #Articles #NonfictionJournal #Nonfiction #Academia

Today we're highlighting Janelle Lynch's "Fragmentation as Necessary Literary Form: Kate Zambreno’s Book of Mutter," from this season's issue of Assay. How do we use fragmentation as a literary device for trauma narratives?

"Viewing the mosaic lyric essay in the context of its fine art analog allows us to see not only the mechanisms at play but also their effects," writes Benjamin Wielechowski for Assay 13.1. How does our understanding change when viewing the essay through the lens of film editing, or spatial form?

Welcome back to our "Proctoring the Essay" series from @notthatjohnproctor! Today we're highlighting Lee Martin and @lisanik.bluesky.social. Read Proctor's thoughts on Martin and Nikolidakis on our new-ish Substack! buff.ly/CXZn3ZX

Welcome to Substack Sunday--today we're celebrating Livia Meneghin and her take on Michelle Zauner's fantastic "Crying in H Mart." What's your favorite essay to teach? Write it up and send it to us! buff.ly/m1F7j6m #AssayJournal #FavoriteEssayToTeach #MichelleZauner #LiviaMeneghin

"...In an imagessay...The aesthetic question to ask is whether the visual elements enhance the meaning of the text and whether the verbal elements enrich our understanding of the images," wrote Robert Root in Assay 13.1.

"The essay is a dress with pockets," writes Micah McCrary for Assay 13.1. "A seamless blend of style and function that forces us to be discursive about what does and doesn’t qualify as essay..." What do you think an essay is or isn't? Sound off in the comments and read more at buff.ly/3hrUIVc

New on Proctoring the Essay this week, John spends time with the terrific Sarah Resnick and Christopher Notarnicola. Spend some time with three writing Game Changers here: buff.ly/oOndeoF

Welcome to Substack Sunday, where we celebrate one of our great pedagogical posts from our archives--today we have Wendy Call on our My Favorite Essay to Teach Series, on Sejal Shah's "Thank You." What's your favorite essay to teach? Write it up and send it to us! buff.ly/5gEFwRX

My Favorite Essay to Teach: Wendy Call on Sejal Shah's "Thank You"

In my semester-long Introduction to Creative Nonfiction course, I devote three class sessions to flash nonfiction – just a flash of it, you might say.

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Hey, hey, it's Submission Saturday! Assay is looking for your nonfiction scholarship, informal analysis, and nonfiction pedagogy--as well as even more informal submissions for our Substack series. For more information, visit our website! buff.ly/9fikydq

As we continue our celebration of our new fall issue, Richard A. Decker's Process as Processing: An Analysis of Illustration and AI Use in Vauhini Vara’s “Ghosts” is a thought-provoking consideration of a thorny question. Read more at buff.ly/tjwiUfE

We love a good essay on the essay, don't you? If you haven't seen Micah McCrary's "This Essay is a Dress," check it out! More at buff.ly/RS9ht8O.

Samantha Edmonds, in "I Create as I Speak: Myth-Making in Creative Nonfiction," argues that "mythopoeia—though most associated with speculative and fantasy genres—is not in itself a genre at all; it is a technique, and thus can be applied to any category of writing, including creative nonfiction."

Today we're highlighting David Berridge's terrific "Again, but Different, and Again: A Pedagogy of Excess in The Writing Life of Annie Dillard," a timely spotlight of the late Annie Dillard. Read more at buff.ly/RS9ht8O!

New on Proctoring the Essay this week, John spends time with the mighty Cheryl Strayed. Read more at buff.ly/KRJHtvV

Fresh from our new fall issue, Joanna Eleftheriou's marvelous interview with Heidi Czerwiec, co-editor of the almost-hot-off-the-press Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing the Lyric Essay! Read more at buff.ly/RS9ht8O!

Hello, Substack Sunday! Are you subscribed to Assay's Substack yet? We've recently migrated here from Wordpress for all our between the issues content, from John Proctor's new series on Best American Essays to our long running series My Favorite Essay to Teach and The Backlist, and more. Join us!

It's Submission Saturday! We're looking for scholarship, informal analysis, and pedagogy for our spring issue and beyond. Send your work today! More details at buff.ly/tjwiUfE.

The first piece in Assay's brand new fall issue is Tim Bascom's fantastic "Picturing the Perfect Essay: A Visual Guide," the most delightful visual exploration of essays we know of. #AssayJournal #EssaysThatMatter #CreativeNonfiction

We're excited to have a fresh, bright issue for you! For Fall 2026 we're delighted to publish David Berridge and Richard A. Becker's terrific nonfiction pedagogy. Head to assayjournal.com to check out the latest issue! ✨

Sun's out, new Assay's out ☀️ Here's the last preview of our Fall 2026 issue, featuring Micah McCrary's great essay on the essay and three magnificent new additions to the Assay Interview Project! Head to our website at assayjournal.com for the new issue! ✨

Don't you just love fall? Goodbye heat domes, hello cozy season--and hello new Assay! We're excited to have a fresh issue to share today! For Fall 2026 we're delighted to publish the likes of Tim Bascom, Samantha Edmonds, Janelle Lynch, Robert Root, and Benjamin Wielechowski in our articles.

Happy Fall! The shiny new issue of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies is hot off the presses and smelling of apple cider and maple leaves! Grab some hot chocolate and a cozy blanket, and check out the delightful new nonfiction scholarship and pedagogy we have for you!

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