Off Assignment

This summer, we're hosting a fiction class unlike any we've offered before: "Writing the Short Story" with Sanjena Sathian (@sanjenasathian ).⁠ ⁠ This course dives deeply into structure of short fiction, picking apart the anatomy of a story and analyzing its component parts: character, plot, voice, and more. It's a syllabus filled with writing prompts, exceptional readings, and a roster of incredibly accomplished authors. With guest appearances by Maria Kuznetsova (@mashawritesstuff ), Aimee Bender, Senaa Ahmad, and Tony Tulathimutte (@tonytula ), the course will allow you to ask working authors (of some of our favorites!) your pressing questions about the craft of the short story. For starters: How can conceit inform structure?⁠ ⁠ Early bird pricing ends in just a few days, so don't miss out on the discount. Head to the link in our bio to sign up!

In last week's "No Equivalent" essay, Yasmin Roshanian (@yasmin_rosh ) explored what exile means for the children of those forced to leave their country—and how the pain of that alienation can be inherited. Read this eye-opening essay on Farsi, Iran, and a daughter's quest with language through our link in bio.

A crucial lesson for any working writer is that editorial relationships are ineffably valuable. Though it seems daunting, the only way to learn from editors is to forge relationships with them, and to speak candidly about the industry. This is the precise aim of our upcoming "Think Like an Editor: Revising Essays for Publication" with Matt Ortile (@mattortile ) and visiting editors Tajja Isen (@tajja.isen ) from Orion (@orion_magazine ), Lauren Puckett-Pope (@laurpuckett ) from Elle (@elleusa ), Daniel Gross from The New Yorker (@newyorkermag ), and Adrian Rivera from The New York Times Op-Ed Section (@nytimes ). Join us and you'll leave the course not only with a more polished essay and refined pitch, but with a clearer understanding of how editorial relationships work can enable you to successfully and sustainably write, revise, and submit. Register now through the link in our bio!

As you'd expect—from, well, everything about us—our staffers are pretty far-flung. But we don't let that stop us! Last week, Colleen (@colleen.kinder ), Logan (@yolodavis ), Isabel, and our beloved though un-pictured Aube (@aubenoisette ) gathered in Brooklyn to talk all things OA courses, and play an equal amount of catch-up. It's rare and precious for co-working to feel like such a treat; we're still basking in gratitude for a whirlwind summit, not to mention our excitement about the future of OA courses. There are spectacular things on our horizon; just you wait! 💛💙

One of OA's most beloved "No Equivalent" essays, "Chuches," is writer Yasmin Roshanian's (@yasmin_rosh ) pick for her favorite OA archival piece. The setting may be Spain, but the delight of childhood treats is a universal language. "The piece was shaped with such a palpable nostalgia. I was so struck by the detailing—the feeling of lingering between; those ephemeral markers of childhood. I could feel and taste everything," Yasmin said about the piece. Revisit this ode to candy by Olaya Barr (@olayabarr ) through our link in bio.

Are you ready to bring your book proposal to life? We’ve got just the place to begin.⁠ ⁠ “Writing the Book Proposal” with Raksha Vasudevan (@raksha.vasudevan01 ) brings together top editors, agents, and authors—Irvin Weathersby Jr. (@irvinwrites ), Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (@alexmlwrites ), Noelle Falcis Math (@goodkwento.nfm ), and Pilar Garcia-Brown (@pilarakiko )—to demystify that all-important document. This course is built on in-class analysis to real-world examples, deep structural study of book proposal anatomy, and expansive Q&As with our guests — but above all, it is generative. Prompted by the assigned homework, you’ll walk away with a working draft of your very own proposal. ⁠ ⁠ It’s here: the perfect balance of guidance, study, and prompts that will finally move you forward in your own proposal—as well as your book itself. Scholarship applications are due TODAY; apply or register today through the link in our bio!

This week, we're reading a short story on a pharmaceutical worker with a relationship crisis by OA "Witching Hour" contributor Anne Korkeakivi (@anne_korkeakivi ) for @ghostparachute ; a time-bending epistolary love letter from a father to a daughter by Michael Torres (@michaelpolodot01 ) for @thesunmagazine ; and a short but breath-taking essay on a leap from the Twin Towers by the late Brian Doyle for Portland Magazine. Read these and more in our newsletter, link's in the bio.

Seeking stellar short fiction? Read along to meet the head teacher and guest authors of our upcoming course, “Writing the Short Story”—and get to know their inimitable work. Sanjena Sathian (@sanjenasathian ) will lead us in our learning. Bold and witty, her novel “Goddess Complex” is distinguished as a New Yorker Best Book of 2025 and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Smart, satirical, and deeply relevant, the book broaches parenthood and the millennial identity dilemma. Maria Kuznetsova (@mashawritesstuff ) joins our class in its first week. Her novel “Something Unbelievable” is the deeply touching and often hilarious story of survival across generations and borders, entwining the lives of a new mother and her Ukrainian grandmother while excavating their shared pasts. Aimee Bender is the author of six magical books of literary fiction. Her short story collection “The Color Master” was a 2013 New York Times Notable book; we love it for its deep pathos and distinct interiority. Whimsical and sensitive, these stories are paragons of all the short story form strives to accomplish—you can ask her all your burning craft questions in Week 2. Senaa Ahmad’s debut short story collection, “The Age of Calamities,” is a stunner. Speculative but grounded, with a splash of absurdism, these stories deliver an immortal Anne Boleyn, a choose-your-own Manhattan Project, and a murder mystery with the company of Nefertiti, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. It’s unlike anything we’ve read before, and we can’t wait to delve into the process in Week 3! Tony Tulathimutte (@tonytula ) closes out our course with his brilliant “Rejection.” This collection, which functions as a novel-in-stories, was a New York Times Best Book of 2024 and one of Time’s 100 must-reads of 2024. As the stories—circling the central theme of modern rejection—progress, they grow increasingly experimental, satirical, and inventive. If you’re like us, these titles will quickly move from your TBR pile onto your favorites shelf. Join “Writing the Short Story” to hear directly from these phenomenal writers — still plenty of time to take advantage of the early bird pricing, so head to the link in bio to sign up.

This week's new essay is a heartbreaking exploration of the first-generation experience of feeling exiled from a place you may have never personally known. In this week's "Behind the Essay" interview, writer Yasmin Roshanian (@yasmin_rosh ) talks about the exile she inherited, the necessity of Farsi lessons in processing that exile, and what the diaspora means to her. Read the full interview through the link in bio.

What stands between you and writing your memoir? Is it your duty to someone else? The confusion that surrounds the other characters in your story? Whose story are you allowed to tell? When and how should you navigate the inclusion of other real people in your own?⁠ ⁠ Don’t let these big questions stop you from writing your story. Haley Mlotek’s (@haleymlotek ) upcoming course, “Ethics of Memoir,” is an invitation to untangle these artistic and ethical standards and to discuss what it means to write others into your memoir. ⁠ ⁠ Join Haley and her incredible lineup of guest speakers, who each have written about themselves and others in deft, ethical, and inventive ways, Susan Orlean (@susanorlean ), Hanif Abdurraqib (@nifmuhammad ), Sarah Miller (@sarahpetersmiller ), and Jamie Hood (@veryhotmommm ) to weigh the considerations of others in memoir and—most importantly—finally finish that draft.⁠ ⁠ Early bird pricing ends today — head to the link in our bio to register.

Iran looms large in writer Yasmin Roshanian's (@yasmin_rosh ) existence—and yet she has never been, and for now, cannot go. What happens when you are exiled from a country as inheritance, when the pain of alienation comes from the nostalgia of people all around you? In this beautiful and timely "No Equivalent" essay, Yasmin examines how Farsi is a conduit to the lineage and country she knows from afar. Read it through the link in bio.

We’re all destined for heartbreak. Romantic, professional, familial, platonic—it’s an unavoidable devastation. How we handle it, however, lies in our company. Meet the people you'll be learning from in our upcoming course, “Writing Heartbreak”: gifted writers of messiness, love, and loss, here to stand alongside you as you navigate writing heartbreak. Head teacher Chloé Caldwell’s (@chloeeeecaldwell ) memoir “Trying” is a masterclass in writing from heartbreak—it catalogues not only the implosion of her marriage, but the becoming that ensues. Chloé will guide each session of this course with an emphasis on community and accountability: You can expect to leave class with 20,000 (!!) new words of writing, an act of excavation surely long in the waiting. Hannah Pittard (@hannahpittard ) joins our first week of class. Her autofictional novel “If You Love It, Let It Kill You” was a top book-club pick by The New Yorker. A form-twisting novel writing fracture with poignance and honesty, it's at once absurd and real—the perfect text to jumpstart our discussions of heartbreak’s many latent forms. Next, Tommy Pico (@tommypicoprints ) will join the class to prompt us to examine what heartbreak can look like on the page, what form can lend to the writing process, and what exactly a “breakup” can be. His poem “Junk” synthesizes the tumult of identity, politics, and pop culture into a book-length meditation on breakup writ large. Zaina Arafat’s (@zainaara ) debut novel “You Exist Too Much” grounds our discussion in Week 3. The novel navigates the chaotic grounds of love and heartbreak through vignettes, and asks us to dissect the connection between desire and heartbreak—and begs the question of whether we can forgo one entirely. Scaachi Koul’s (scaachi) recent essay collection “Sucker Punch” is a deftly structured memoir that manages to impose order on emotional upheaval. Filled at once with pathos and humor, these essays chronicle divorce’s beauty and pain with searing wit. Her visit to our class is another call to action—to write all of heartbreak’s contours. Don’t miss out on this company! Their work does more than anchor our discussions—it urges you to write.