Autofiction can help distill your writing's deeper truth. Thru generative exercises, close readings, & craft discussions led by @aubereylescure.bsky.social‬ w @alexanderchee.bsky.social, Laura van den Berg, Andrew Sean Greer, & Zinzi Clemmons, we’ll explore fictionalizing real life: buff.ly/cpod41Y

OA contributor @lucaseschaefer.bsky.social 's debut novel THE SLIP is out TOMORROW! If you're in the Boston area, mark your calendars for June 13th, when Lucas will be joined at @portersquarebooks by OA editor-in-chief @aubereylescure.bsky.social to celebrate THE SLIP. RSVP here: buff.ly/812uuSr

In this frank and funny "Under the Influence" essay, Jack Christian explores how Monday-hating, lasagna-loving Garfield can inspire an unexpected journey to re-energize a creative life. Read it here: www.offassignment.com/undertheinfl...

Stripes of Inspiration: Drawing Garfield in Muncie — Off Assignment

At the end of August 2023, I flew to Indianapolis where my friend, the artist Kate Parnell, picked me up in her mom’s silver Hyundai Sonata of late-90s vintage. It maxed out at 62 mph. Above the licen...

offassignment.com

For my New York Times debut, I wrote about how much I love rotisserie chicken, obviously: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/m...

No One Will Ever Love Me Like Rotisserie Chicken Does

nytimes.com

In 2007, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai stood outside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, unable to enter—until a letter at the foot of the black marble changed her life. This month marks the 50th anniversary of Vietnam war; this powerful essay calls for humanity in the face of horror: buff.ly/sm1yfrF

Launching our new @offassignment.bsky.social column, "Goodbye to that Place," with a stunning essay by Leslie Jamison. Please read: it's short &oh-so-powerful. Writers, if you have your own narrative farewell to a bygone place--start drafting, we'd love to read. www.offassignment.com/gttp/leslie-...

Goodbye to the Home Lost in the Palisades Fire — Off Assignment

“Where my grandmother gave me bridge lessons and kept Sunkist fruit gems in her porcelain candy bowl. Where I did not give my pet cactus enough water. Where we shot our BB gun at the lemon tree in the...

offassignment.com

River East, River West is on the Carol Shields Prize longlist!!! Look at this glorious company. Thank you so much to the judges and @carolshieldsprize.bsky.social ❤️🥳!

The Carol Shields Prize For Fiction@carolshieldsprize.bsky.social · last yr.

The 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction Longlist 15 unforgettable works of fiction by women writers in the U.S. and Canada, spanning novels, short story collections, and fiction in translation. Learn more: carolshieldsprizeforfiction.com/2025-longlist

An Iraqi writer living in Helsinki travels to Cairo while reading The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa: this "Under the Influence" essay by Aya Chalabee for @offassignment.bsky.social is the kind of travel writing I am so proud we publish. Read this gorgeous piece: www.offassignment.com/undertheinfl...

Pink Rivers: Reading Yōko Ogawa in Cairo — Off Assignment

"I always have to go back to where I came from. I have to go back alone. One must always be prepared in the morning to find oneself carrying a new cavity." The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa, 1994 R...

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Dream blurb alert! Grateful to @alexanderchee.bsky.social for his writing (including the stunning EDINBURGH, pictured here), for his generosity as a teacher, and for his very kind words about THE SLIP, coming June 3 from Simon & Schuster

In April I’m teaching an online masterclass for bsky.app/profile/offa... about writing grief, five sessions on Saturday mornings. I wrote you a letter about why this work matters; it's here, along with info about how you (and your friends and maybe your mom?) can join us. mailchi.mp/offassignmen...

"There is something terrifying in the face of a Buddha, in the curve of the eye and the lip: beauty, but also an expression that is not quite benevolent, an expression that reminds you that awe also means fear." @aubereylescure.bsky.social @grantamag.bsky.social longreads.com/2025/02/17/t...

A very special essay out with @grantamag.bsky.social. It’s about worship, China, patterns, food deliveries, burials, divinations, gorges, moths, padded bras, and silk worms. To see how it all connects, please give this a read — and share if you enjoyed it 🙏 granta.com/the-secret-p...

The Secret Pattern

‘Filtered only through headlines, China had become a political entity more than a physical place where I had grown up, where half of my family still lived.’

granta.com