Off Assignment: Personal Essay Submissions
Off Assignment is a literary magazine with a penchant for journeys and a fascination with strangers. We're looking for writers who travel, poets who wander, essayists with a sense of place, reporters with swollen notebooks, and gourmands with street cart taste. We’re not here to guide vacations. We don’t cover spas or centennials. We want the writer on the page—sweating, tripping, and telling a tale.
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We accept simultaneous submissions, as long as you immediately notify us that your piece has been accepted elsewhere. We are interested only in original essays; your work must not have been published elsewhere prior to submitting.
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES:
Letter to a Stranger
Who haunts you?
We all harbor thoughts about the strangers at the edges of our lives. Write a letter to an unshakeable stranger you’ve met along the way, whether travelling across the world, the country, or down the street.
A great “Letter to a Stranger” has some magic to it, and often speaks to more than just what it's directly about. It's never colonialist or judgemental. It is a highly personal narrative that stirs up universal themes.
Word count: 800-1800. Include a title in the “To___” format (for example, “To the Lady at the Subway Turnstile”).
Examples:
To the Traveling Magician by Leslie Jamison
To the Protagonist of a Too Short Story by Carlynn Houghton
To the Pharmacist on Futong West Street by Monet P. Thomas
To the Man I Believe was Good by Lauren Groff
No Equivalent
Teju Cole writes: “The English word translation...descends from the Latin translatus: trans, across or over, and latus, which is the past participle of ferre, to carry, related to the English word ‘ferry.’ The translator, then, is the ferry operator, carrying meaning from words on that shore to words on this shore.”
What is one word you have come across that resists being ferried over into English? Write about one of these untranslatable words, and the role it has played in your personal geography or voyages.
Word count: 800-1800
Examples:
Pajogan by Amber Meadow Adams
Caccata by Jeanna Lucci Canapari
Crusher Run by John Kaufmann
Chuches by Olaya Barr
Under the Influence
The art we surround ourselves with affects our reality. What happens when we use authors or artists as guides to our travels, near and far? Which artist’s presence accompanies you down a street or rests with you on a park bench? Tell us about the interplay between art and reality, and how the lens of each showed you something interesting about the other. Title your submission along the lines of “Reading [author] in [place]”/ “Listening to [artist] in [place],” etc.
Word Count: 800-2000.
Examples:
Northern Winds: Reading Tayeb Salih in Sudan by Nanjala Nyabola
How Not to Leave the Arctic Circle by Alexander Lumans
In Search of Smoky Cafes by Lilly Dancyger
Sunflower Children: Listening to Post Malone in Alaska by Meghan Gunn
What I Didn't Say
Any writer knows that, often, the most interesting part of the assignment doesn’t make it into the story. Revisit the experiences that have stuck with you, the happenings that didn’t bend into the margins of the assignment, but that persist in your memory. This isn’t a behind-the-scenes travel diary—this is the story behind the story.
Word Count: 2000-5000.
Examples:
Into the Gray by Pico Iyer
My Guantánamo, and Theirs by Ted Conover
Bad Witness: What I Didn’t Say about Reporting on Chinese Christians in Kenya by April Zhu
Witching Hour
In this new series, we want to feature lyrical portraits of places at a distinct time of day or night. In contrast to the whirlwind nature of 36-hour travel, we want to indulge in a scene locked in the grasp of one specific time and place. Jean Valentine writes about 3 am in New York and Georges Perec writes about 10:30 in Paris. What’s the portrait of a time and place that bewitches you? To get started, use this sentence construction: “X o’clock in Y place is ____,” and write from there.
Word count: 300-500.
10 p.m. in Muriwai by Hallie Pritts
7 p.m. in Amsterdam-Oost by Lalini Shanela Ranaraja
2:40 p.m. in Ann Arbor by Divya Manikandan
1:11 p.m. in Hippie Hollow by Greg Marshall
Payment
We consider full drafts only, and pay $300 for "Letter to a Stranger," "No Equivalent," "Under the Influence," and "What I Didn't Say" essays. We pay $100 for "Witching Hour" essays.