Off Assignment

Off Assignment An online literary magazine with a penchant for journeys and a fascination with strangers. We’re not here to guide vacations. We don’t cover spas or centennials.

Off Assignment is a literary magazine with a penchant for journeys and a fascination with strangers. We’re made up of writers who travel, poets who wander, essayists with a sense of place, reporters with swollen notebooks, and gourmands with street cart taste. We have a taste for offbeat places. We care about voice and story. We want the writer on the page—sweating, tripping, and telling a tale.

Though we seem so very literary (and we are!), OA is much more than a bunch of wordsmiths: We’re a masthead of frog catc...
02/24/2026

Though we seem so very literary (and we are!), OA is much more than a bunch of wordsmiths: We’re a masthead of frog catchers, once-DJs, sea voyagers, fierce competitors, and so much more! Introducing…things you didn’t know about the OA staff!

🏓 Logan (), our Writing Courses Manager, is a ping pong champion! She plays wherever and whenever she can—which, she admits, is quite often.

🐸 Aube (), our beloved Editor-in-Chief, is not only a seriously impressive long-distance walker, but has over three decades of experience catching frogs.

👟 Jane (), our ever-creative illustrator, describes themself as a "slow but steady runnner." Go Jane, go!

🎷 Editor-at-Large Carey (), out in Nairobi, is a saxophone player—who knew!

🎧 Stephen (), as well as being our multi-skilled Marketing Strategist, once moonlit as Miss Teen USA, a DJ who spun post-punk vinyl across Pittsburgh. Not only that—he met his wife through a Craigslist Missed Connections post after DJing an event!

🛳 Co-founder Colleen (.kinder) once sailed all around the world on a cruise ship (while working on it).

🌽 Anya (), Managing Editor, has a master’s degree in porn—yes, really. Pictured is her presenting at an academic conference, and no she will not be taking questions at this time 😉

🧘‍♀️ Isabel, when not in an OA Zoom room supporting our teachers and students, spends a ton of time upside-down. She’s taught aerial yoga for eight years, and hasn’t gotten dizzy yet!

🧶 Tusshara (.ns) is an earnest, beginner knitter. She's made a scarf, fingerless gloves, and a hat. She's working on a purple sweater vest, which will hopefully be ready for autumn.

Yes, our Slack has been ALIGHT with all the new things we just learned about each other (it was hard to narrow down each of us to just one tidbit) — so we hope you enjoy this wee glimpse as well.

There’s long been a healthy overlap between the writers we publish and the writers who teach with us. Rather than preten...
02/05/2026

There’s long been a healthy overlap between the writers we publish and the writers who teach with us. Rather than pretending those worlds don’t touch—essays over here, courses over there—we want to lean into that confluence.

So today, we’re delighted to share a small collection that lives right at that intersection: Ten essays by writers who’ve both guided our courses and written pieces that illuminate the world in ways only Off Assignment can. These essays provide a glimpse behind the curtain: the thinking, feeling, and lived attention that informs both how these writers teach and how they show up on the page. Browse and enjoy through the link in our bio.

As a middle-schooler, Naomi Gordon-Loebl () vehemently denied being q***r — but every morning, on the subway platform on...
01/28/2026

As a middle-schooler, Naomi Gordon-Loebl () vehemently denied being q***r — but every morning, on the subway platform on their way to school, their eyes were constantly drawn to a q***r couple on the same commute. Something about them gave her peace, even inspiration. In remembering that couple now, Naomi considers the role of the "q***r elder," the notion of responsibility to those that come after you, and the messiness of true q***r life and love. Read this vulnerable and deeply romantic "Letter to a Stranger" through the link in our bio.

Nonfiction so often gravitates toward the loudest, most dramatic moments in life: illness, trauma, transformation. But w...
01/19/2026

Nonfiction so often gravitates toward the loudest, most dramatic moments in life: illness, trauma, transformation. But what about the small, glimmering ones? Trying to coax a child to sleep, buying candy at the corner store, the way light falls across a kitchen table. These daily, seemingly insignificant experiences can hold surprising aesthetic and political power. To write the mundane is to look again at what usually escapes notice, and to find meaning in the ordinary.

In this four-session seminar led by acclaimed journalist, author, and recent OA contributor Heather Radke (), we’ll examine the works of writers who have turned their gaze toward the everyday—from Montaigne on thumbs to Agnes Varda on potatoes—and we’ll experiment with writing techniques that make the small poignant, resonant, even thrilling. We'll also be joined by phenomenal guest authors each week—Ross Gay, Leslie Jamison, Elisa Gabbert (), and Aimee Nezhukumatathil ()—who will speak to the politics, craft, and aesthetic opportunities of writing about the mundane.

Together, we’ll ask: What can the small reveal about the large? How might writing about the mundane help us rethink the boundaries of the personal and the political, the trivial and the profound? And how might paying attention to the most ordinary moments in life help us all write about the most extraordinary parts of living?

Early Bird pricing is valid until February 9, and scholarship applications are due February 16. Learn more and register through the link in our bio.

Imagine our suprise when, minutes into watching Marty Supreme, we saw longtime OA friend (literally the impetus of our f...
01/18/2026

Imagine our suprise when, minutes into watching Marty Supreme, we saw longtime OA friend (literally the impetus of our founding, as you can read on our About page) and contributor Pico Iyer on-screen as Marty's bureaucratic nemesis in the world of international ping pong! We always knew we were one degree of connection away from Hollywood—just sayin' (Timmy, your invitation to our next event is in the mail). But most importantly, here's a beautiful quote from Pico about his careers in travel writing and, now, acting: "I’ve always felt that writing is acting by another name; even in nonfiction, I’m trying to get into a foreigner’s soul by finding the corner in me that rhymes with something in him." Congratulations, Pico!

On a brisk Friday night in beautiful Red Hook, over 60 Off Assignment readers, contributors, alums, and admirers joined ...
11/17/2025

On a brisk Friday night in beautiful Red Hook, over 60 Off Assignment readers, contributors, alums, and admirers joined to ask and answer the question, "What does scrappy mean to you?" — a question that was posed in an OA course last year and that Farah Faye has built an entire reading series out of. Seven phenomenal readings ensued: We heard about Vietnamese dads, surprisingly supportive bosses, sketchy relatives, night club shenanigans, anthropomorphized body parts, disease tinged with hope, and the comfort of Pringles cans. An unforgettable evening, and here's to many more opportunities to connect, scrappy and all!

Last night, in a wood-paneled room overlooking the Statue of Liberty from the 25th floor, OA writers and supporters gath...
11/06/2025

Last night, in a wood-paneled room overlooking the Statue of Liberty from the 25th floor, OA writers and supporters gathered for our annual "Stories & Strangers" soirée — celebrating stories that transport and strangers who enchant. We raised glasses of bubbly, choked up retracing OA’s origins, and shared the far-flung locales we'd all come from (including South Africa, Canada, the UK, the Bay Area, Chicago, and more!). We were treated to a reading by our very first contributor, Leslie Jamison, and were hypnotized by Pier Nirandara's () award-winning “Letter to a Stranger” essay. On the cusp of our 10-year anniversary, we also couldn't help but look ahead to the next ten years—as our magazine grows and our community expands, we can’t wait to gather in person more often and celebrate literature, place writing, and strangers around the globe. 📸:

We’re writing in a time of collective rage. There’s an endless loop of desperate news cycles, an escalating risk to our ...
11/04/2025

We’re writing in a time of collective rage. There’s an endless loop of desperate news cycles, an escalating risk to our bodies and our communities, an aching planet, and through it all, each of us is moving deeply personal mountains that no one else can see.

How do we show up to the page when it feels like the world is on fire? How do we find language for the fury, the fear, the grief, the gutpunch, the thing we can’t put down?

In this four-session course led by acclaimed essayist (and former axe-thrower) Megan Stielstra (), we’ll spotlight different ways to channel this raw, raging emotion into skillful prose, examining the tools and techniques that other luminary writers— Carmen Maria Machado (), Maggie Smith (), Ashley C. Ford (), and Dan Sinker ()—have used to wrestle with such demons into personal essays. In addition to these weekly author conversations, we’ll engage in activities to get our experiences out of the body and into the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How much distance is needed between the experience and the writing? How can craft—tone, place, character, scene-building, research—help us crack down the walls we put up for ourselves around the rage we really want to write about? And how can our rage propel us—a positive release into art and change?

Our first—all too relevant, especially on this particular Tuesday—Masters' Series course of 2026 is live!! Head to the link in bio to snag a spot with early bird pricing (which will only be available until Nov 25), apply for a scholarship (applications are due January 31), or just take the leap and register. See you in class 🎓

When Farah Faye () took our Masters' Series course called "Scrappy: How to Build an Alternative Literary Life" last year...
10/30/2025

When Farah Faye () took our Masters' Series course called "Scrappy: How to Build an Alternative Literary Life" last year (led by the inimitable Chloé Caldwell ()), she was inspired to begin an eponymous reading series in Brooklyn, leaning on the scrappy ethos and the community she developed through OA. So we're simply thrilled that it's come full circle to us hosting a joint Scrappy x OA event this November 14 with all-Off Assignment lineup: contributors, teachers, and alums. Free to attend, but space is limited so register through the link in our bio, and spread the word — can't wait to see you there!

Huge congratulations to Lucy Schiller (), whose “No Equivalent” essay “Harmas” was selected as a Best American Essays 20...
10/21/2025

Huge congratulations to Lucy Schiller (), whose “No Equivalent” essay “Harmas” was selected as a Best American Essays 2025 Notable! A well-deserved recognition for this virtuosic essay on etymology, insects, wastelands, fertility, and diagnosis. We’re so proud to celebrate Lucy and “Harmas”—head to the link in bio to read!

10/20/2025

"Rejections are part of the process—you might as well take your own out of the equation."

Award-winning picture book author Minh Lê () joined our recent "Writing Picture Books" course with Kyo Maclear () and talked about how so many of our essays, stories, and books never venture beyond of our own folders—and how regrettable that is. But in the writing community built through OA courses, we encourage each other to dare take that risk, and not reject our own work before it even has a chance out in the world.

Colleen Kinder here (.kinder), co-founder of Off Assignment. Back in July, I confessed in our newsletter that I’ve alway...
10/14/2025

Colleen Kinder here (.kinder), co-founder of Off Assignment. Back in July, I confessed in our newsletter that I’ve always felt a bit stumped when it came to a Board of Directors. Our earliest Board was stacked with my friends, and I didn’t really know what to ask or expect of them. Little did I know, this confession would opening the floodgates in the very best way. We were inundated this summer with applications to our Board of Directors—by people who DID understand what it takes to serve on a Board, and moreover, who wanted to serve on Off Assignment’s.

I could hardly be more giddy about the new Board members we’re announcing today, joining co-founder Vince Errico (), contributor Amber Meadow Adams, professor Anne Fadiman, and Board Chair Kathryn Besemer (). They are brilliant, multi-talented, deeply experienced, and finally: lovers of literature. My favorite thing, though, about these incredible advocates of our growing organization is that I knew virtually none of them when I founded OA almost ten years ago. That is to say, they are all people who have watched the magazine from afar, and who really see something in it. Not only does that move me deeply, it feels like a milestone. Congratulations Pier Nirandara (), David Goldenberg (), Ankita Neotia (), Seth Kaplan (), Jayme Silverstone, Arani Kajenthira, and Vanessa De Luca (). We are so honored to have you—literally—on board.

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