Angela Chen

Instructor & Writer
Profile Photo

Angela Chen is a senior editor at Wired Magazine and the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the best books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them. Her reporting and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, Paris Review, Lapham's Quarterly, and more. 

Classes

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Stories

Cover Photo: illustration depicting a large face in the foreground, looking out at a mountain range of line graphs and other faces arrayed against a starry field
Writing a Book About Asexuality Taught Me to Look for a Fate Beyond Numbers

I learned to reevaluate the meaning of ‘normal’ in relationships, and also my habit of reflexively turning to data.

Sep 15, 2020
Cover Photo: iStock/CSA Images
How I Learned to Tell Signal from Noise and Appreciate Calm

It can be easy to confuse real emotion with the shiny drama enfolding it. Sometimes grand gestures are signs of grand feeling—sometimes they’re not.

Nov 19, 2018
Cover Photo: photo by Austin Fausto/flickr
On Being Young, Scrappy, and (Sometimes) Satisfied

Remain forever hungry, or enjoy the tried-and-true? Sometimes, I learned, it’s okay to double down on the life you have.

Aug 13, 2018
Cover Photo: photo courtesy of the author
How We Create Personal Myths, and Why They Matter

My parental separation was vastly less traumatic than what is happening to children at the border. But this narrative lives inside me.

Jul 18, 2018
Cover Photo: Tallulah Pomeroy
How I Learned to Reconcile the Distance Between Experience and Memory

As my mother loses the ability to remember, I find myself playing with my own memory.

Jun 12, 2018
Cover Photo: photo via rawpixel/pixabay
The Downside of Radical Honesty

The problem with radical honesty is that we are not transparent to ourselves—we are always biased, and so is the feedback we provide.

Mar 07, 2018
Cover Photo: image via Quinn Dombrowski/flickr
Is Your Streak About to End? The False Belief That Can Drive Both Gambling and Anxiety

Many of us subconsciously believe there is only so much good allotted to us—so, when something good happens, watch out.

Feb 14, 2018
Cover Photo: photo by Alina Miroshnichenko/unsplash
The Beauty Myth: What Keeps Us From Seeing Ourselves Clearly?

“What I look like” is not a static picture cut out and placed in different environments, but one that changes again and again.

Jan 16, 2018
Cover Photo: photo by Ali Yahya/unsplash
No Best Friend, But Better Off

Friendship is not about going down a list with some people always first, others second and third. Every friendship is unique.

Dec 12, 2017
Cover Photo: Tallulah Pomeroy
Can Desire or Love Be Predicted?

Data versus the real world: what compatibility algorithms can’t tell you.

Nov 15, 2017