Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, is currently open and searching for submissions for the Spring 2016 edition with a focus on social justice.

See full submission guidelines online, or see the following letter from editor Karine Babine:

I’m writing today to ask for your help to spread the word and the call about Assay’s spring issue. On Wednesday morning, we, like many of you, had no idea what to do, how to walk into our classrooms, what to say to our students. If you’re anything like me, walking into my composition class on Wednesday morning to talk about Aristotle’s Three Appeals seemed beyond ridiculous. So, like many of you, I scrapped my lesson plan. It was a Facebook post from a friend that got me there: “Educators, get out of bed. We have work to do.” Writers: we have work to do. 

This week, the Assay staff decided that while we would still like to have a focus on Best American Essays in our spring issue, we would like to fill our pages with the nonfiction of social justice. We’re looking for full scholarly articles, we’re looking for informal analysis, we’re looking for pedagogy of all sorts, the incredible variety of forms that Assay likes best. We’re looking for the voices we need now, more than ever. Who are the writers of color we need to read (and teach), now more than ever? The LGBTQ writers we need, now more than ever? The environmental writers, as we struggle against the future incarnations of the EPA? Who are the other voices about to marginalized even further? What are the particular texts, the individual essays, the full-length books? 

Assay’s spring issue comes out in March, a few weeks after AWP in Washington, DC, which is a few weeks after Inauguration Day. In the face of feeling helpless and powerless, putting our words into the world to support each other is our best way of putting our boots on the ground.

Please share this call widely with your colleagues and students. We have work to do.