Website review
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What is Nassau Weekly?
Nassau Weekly is Princeton's alternative weekly magazine, published each Sunday since 1976 and mixing campus, local and national material. It is a student-run publication rather than a straight news outlet: the homepage foregrounds essays, a "Soapbox" opinion section, a "Second Look" feature, fiction, poetry, cartoons, crosswords and "Verbatim" quote collections alongside reported pieces. It also invites readers to submit writing, poetry and fiction, and to join the staff.
For a reader, that means it is the place to go for voice-driven writing and campus commentary rather than a comprehensive news digest. A Princeton student curious about opinion and creative work, or an alum wanting a feel for campus culture, will find more of interest in the essays and Verbatim pages than in a traditional paper's front section.
A useful next step: start with the current issue and the "You should read" picks, then browse the Verbatim and poetry/fiction sections to see which formats match your interests. If you write, the submission page is the practical entry point.
How can I submit a piece, Verbatim, or fiction/poetry entry to Nassau Weekly?
Nassau Weekly invites submissions through its site's Submit menu, which lists three distinct routes: Submit a piece, Submit a Verbatim, and Submit to poetry/fiction competition. The menu structure is the clearest guide to which channel fits your work: general essays, campus writing and reported pieces go through "a piece"; short overheard quotations go through "Verbatim"; and competition entries go through the poetry/fiction route.
Choosing the right channel
- Submit a piece — for essays, campus and local writing, arts and music commentary, cartoons or other standalone contributions. This is the broadest category and the default for most writers.
- Submit a Verbatim — for short, verbatim overheard remarks, the kind collected on the site under "Recent Verbatims" (for example, overheard lines from move-in, the National Mall or Midtown Manhattan). These are brief quotations rather than full articles, so format your submission as a single line or short exchange with context.
- Submit to poetry/fiction competition — for poetry and fiction intended as competition entries. If your poem or story is not meant for the competition, ask which route the editors prefer before submitting.
Practical next step
Open the Submit menu on Nassau Weekly and follow the form or contact route attached to each option; the site also links its YouTube and Instagram accounts, which are useful for seeing what the paper publishes and when new issues appear. Because the site presents these as separate submission paths, send your work through the single channel that matches its form rather than through several at once, and keep a copy of anything time-sensitive such as a competition entry.
For a concrete example: if you have a 1,200-word personal essay about a campus event, use "Submit a piece"; if you have a single funny line overheard in a dining hall, use "Submit a Verbatim"; if you have three poems you want considered for the competition, use the poetry/fiction competition route.
What kinds of content appear in a typical issue of Nassau Weekly, such as essays, Verbatim, or cartoons?
Nassau Weekly is Princeton's alternative weekly, and a typical issue blends campus writing with creative work and recurring features. From the homepage, the regular categories are essays, Nass Recommends, Soapbox, Second Look, Fiction, Poetry, Verbatim, Crosswords, Cartoons, Art, and Audiovisual, alongside campus/local news. Recent pieces shown include personal essays ("Society Girl," "Milk from a Stranger"), fiction ("February 11th," "Haircut City"), poetry ("Lac de Sainte-Croix," "half-dreamt crossword"), and reported or reflective campus pieces ("Emergency! Emergency!," "Changing Tides").
What each feature tends to be
- Essays and Nass Recommends: first-person or argument-driven writing, often with a campus angle; "Nass Recommends" reads like curated picks with commentary.
- Soapbox and Second Look: opinion and revisit formats—Soapbox for takes, Second Look for re-examining something already covered or familiar.
- Verbatim: short, overheard quotes, usually funny or absurd, presented as snippets rather than full stories.
- Fiction and Poetry: original creative writing, including competition submissions.
- Crosswords, Cartoons, Art: puzzle and visual features that break up the text.
- Audiovisual: video or multimedia work, linked from the site's "Watch" section.
How to use this
If you're deciding whether to submit, match your piece to the section: a reported campus story fits news/essays, a short funny quote fits Verbatim, and a drawing or puzzle fits the visual slots. For a reader, start with the current issue's table of contents and dip into Verbatim and Cartoons for quick reads, then essays for longer pieces.
How can I advertise in Nassau Weekly or support it through a donation?
For advertising, use the site's Advertise link; for giving, use Donate. Both sit in the main navigation of Nassau Weekly, so you can reach either from any page. The site itself gives no rates, deadlines, formats or payment methods, so treat the linked pages as the place to get specifics rather than assuming terms.
Advertising
Nassau Weekly describes itself as Princeton's alternative weekly magazine, published every Sunday with campus, local and national coverage. That points to a readership of Princeton students, staff and locally engaged readers. Practical uses:
- Campus-facing promotions: events, openings and student services where a weekly print-and-online rhythm fits a short campaign.
- Local businesses wanting visibility with a university audience.
- Departments and student groups announcing talks, auditions or deadlines.
When you enquire, ask for the current rate card, issue deadlines, print versus online placement, and any design requirements. A useful decision criterion: if your audience is Princeton-specific and your timing can follow a Sunday cycle, this outlet is a natural fit; if you need national reach or daily frequency, look elsewhere.
Donations
The Donate link is the direct route to supporting the publication. Before giving, check what the page says about how contributions are used and whether they are tax-deductible; that status depends on the organisation's structure and isn't stated on the homepage. Alumni and regular readers who value independent student journalism are the obvious audience. A concrete next step: read a recent issue (the site lists its latest, Demons, plus an archive) to judge whether the writing is worth backing, then donate at a level you'd repeat annually.
To compare with other Princeton student media before committing either money or ad spend, The Daily Princetonian is the established daily.
Where can I read past issues and archives of Nassau Weekly?
Past issues are available through the "Recent Issues" section on the Nassau Weekly homepage, which also has a "View All Issues" link for browsing beyond the latest few. For older material, the site's "from the archives" tag (used on pieces like Claire Mitchell's In Search of Aura at the Nass Stock Footage Film Festival) is the most direct route to resurfaced content. The navigation also separates Fiction, Poetry, Essays, Verbatim and Cartoons, so a specific piece is often easier to find by section than by date.
A practical approach: start with "View All Issues" if you know roughly when a piece ran, and use the section menus plus the archive tag if you only remember the type of writing. The "Second Look" category is also worth checking, since it revisits earlier work.
Keep in mind the site presents itself as a weekly alternative magazine publishing since 1976, but the homepage does not indicate how far back the digitized issues go, so the deepest archive may require browsing issue by issue rather than a single searchable index.
What is the Verbatim section and how is it different from the paper's essays and reporting?
The Verbatim section is Nassau Weekly's running collection of overheard quotes—short, unattributed snippets of conversation submitted by readers and published as-is. The page's "RECENT VERBATIMS" examples are all one-liners from real settings, such as an "Overheard at Move-In" line and an "Overheard in Midtown Manhattan" line, each built around a single anonymous speaker's remark. It is a submission category of its own: the site lists "Submit a Verbatim" separately from "Submit a piece," and Verbatim sits alongside Crosswords, Cartoons and Art in the navigation rather than under Essays or Campus.
How it differs from the essays and reporting
| Verbatim | Essays and campus pieces | |
|---|---|---|
| Core unit | One overheard line, quoted | An argued or reported piece with a byline and headline |
| Author | The person who overheard it, unnamed | A named writer, e.g. Sophie O'Connor or Libby Howard |
| Work for the reader | A quick laugh or jolt of recognition | Context, interpretation, narrative |
| Editing | Minimal—the quote is the artifact | Shaped, titled and placed in an issue |
The essays and campus writing on the site are titled, attributed and developed: "Nass Recommends: The Original Fall Break," "Society Girl," "Changing Tides." Verbatim strips all of that away. There is no scene-setting, no explanation of why the line is funny, and no byline on the quote itself—the humor depends on the reader filling in the situation. That is also its limitation: a Verbatim lands or it doesn't in a single sentence, while an essay can build a case across paragraphs.
For a reader, Verbatim is the fastest way into the paper and the most local—it only works if you recognize the kinds of places and people being overheard. For a contributor, it is the lowest-barrier submission: one line, no drafting. If you are deciding where a piece of material belongs, the test is whether it needs explaining. A remark that is funny on its own goes to Verbatim; a remark that needs a paragraph of setup is already an essay.
A practical next step: read a handful of recent Verbatims in a row before submitting, and notice how many rely on a named location ("at the National Mall," "in Midtown Manhattan") to do the work the punchline doesn't.
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