Assay publishes the best peer-reviewed critical scholarship of creative nonfiction to provide a space for work that elevates the genre in an academic setting. While there is no shortage of craft pieces and craft texts, the focus of nonfiction analysis has been on the art of the genre. We are looking for articles, conversation pieces, pedagogy, and more.
Articles: We are looking for formal academic scholarship on nonfiction texts, techniques, and authors. We welcome all critical lenses, from ecocriticism to postcolonialism and beyond, on texts from traditional to experimental. We seek a wide variety of texts and approaches.
Conversations: The conversations section includes short, informal discussions of a craft element or reaction to a work of nonfiction (book length or otherwise) or a nonfiction author. Typically, this section is fewer than 1000 words, but the length limits are very flexible.
Pedagogy: We seek formal and informal pedagogy that addresses all levels of students, from first year composition to beginning and advanced creative writing undergraduates, to graduate students. . Pedagogy work does need to be more than “lore,” and we do tend to prefer work that is at least informed by pedagogical scholarship (where appropriate).