Nonvellas are timely, memorable works of nonfiction—narrative journalism, reportage, adventure writing, memoirs, essays— that run from roughly five to twenty thousand words.

As one writer described their fictional counterparts, nonvellas “combine the dynamic thighs of a sprinter with the long-distance lungs of a mountaineer.” This means tightly-paced reads that stride like books, not news hits. They keep the good parts.

The nonvella tradition in North America reaches back to Thoreau, James Baldwin and E.B. White— and more recently Scott Russell Sanders, Susan Orlean and Jon Krakauer. (Sanders’ classic "Settling Down" appears in our first Nonvella Anthology, "Far From Home.")

We’re excited to celebrate the return of this literary dark horse by featuring some of the best emerging and established nonfiction authors in North America. Thanks for reading.