Angela Chen

A few things I've learnt from writing >4,000 word pieces:

- They tend to be more popular than my short pieces!
- They're more definitive - like reference material, not a hot take.
- Not everyone will reach the end, and that's okay.
- Write so that the people who do find it incredibly satisfying.

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

The market for marriage - Works in Progress Magazine It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good agricultural surplus, must be in want of a wife.

"Anthropologist Haneul Jang, who has worked with the BaYaka for over a decade, describes how marriages happen: an enamored adolescent couple will simply walk off into the forest and a few days later, they return and build a hut": worksinprogress.co/issue/marria...

Since moving, J and I have been having escalating fights over his inability to plan, culminating in him sending me a google doc of plans that includes this:

Is the top middle image "an image with a car"?

what is "penthouse studio" a euphemism for? is it "attic"?

Quit Romanticizing Boredom Everyone says “logging off” will solve our problems. After actually living it, I’m not so sure.

For @thecut.com, I wrote about the time I spent two weeks in the hospital waiting for my second kid to be born, and what happened to my mind while I was there

I read it on my honeymoon and it turned out to feel very thematically fitting!

Also, this quote:

Going through vacation photos, found this from the Franz Kafka Museum. Welcome, Franz.

I've had this on my "to-read" since @ruthgraham.bsky.social raved about it years and years ago (her review here: slate.com/culture/2017...). It's extraordinary, perfect mix of psychologically insightful plus dramatic plus existential.

When Adoption Promises Are Broken Many birth mothers hope to maintain contact with their child. But their agreements with adoptive parents can be fragile.

If you want to understand open adoption, it makes sense to start with birth parents—yet studies of them are few. 2+ yrs ago, I began talking w/ birth mothers to try to understand what living in an open adoption is like for them, and what rights or options they might have if challenges were to arise.

I have an essay in the latest
@kenyonreview.bsky.social. It circles questions I've been asking for almost ten years now: how should a medical diagnosis shape the past? When does biology require reconciliation? And what does it mean to be emotionally fair? kenyonreview.org/piece/disease-disposition/

Robots are learning to make human babies. Twenty have already been born. One in six people of reproductive age suffer from infertility. Start-ups are using AI-powered robots to increase IVF success rates and lower costs.

IVF automation in Mexico City: "Over the past three years, babies have been conceived — and at least 20 of them have been born — through clinical trials that involve automation with little to no human intervention." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Seeing ice cream cones during their spawning runs really takes your breath away. They’ll only do this once in their entire lives.

It’s an honor, frankly, even if her cousin Jensen’s company is far more successful.

At an Italian restaurant in Westchester and the waiter says to me: “Has anyone told you you look like…”
I brace myself.
“…Lisa Su, the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices?”

welcome to the team! I'm very excited to meet and work together!

Oreos Combined With Reese’s? Inside the Manhattan Project of Snacks. The combination of two of America’s favorite treats sounded simple. It wasn’t.

"Merging two of America’s most iconic snacks, was a deeply complex undertaking, requiring cloak-and-dagger tactics reminiscent of the Manhattan Project." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Perhaps everything is easier said than done, but I do believe that if I were the most notorious traitor in CIA history, I would have tried harder to cover my tracks. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Years ago, my dad gave me a hard drive and said, somewhat morbidly, "in case I die, I want you to have these family photos." I finally opened it and it's 80% photos of him at ping pong tournaments.

Truly, unintended consequences for everything.

AI systems could become conscious. What if they hate their lives? How to not torture ChatGPT and Claude’s successors.

AI systems could become conscious one day. What if they hate their lives?

Is it our duty to make sure they're happy? To make sure Claude is always enjoying spiritual bliss? What could that even mean for an AI?

My new piece:
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

I do like this Muriel Rukeyser poem, but have less sympathy each time I remember she wrote it in the 60s. "Various devices"? I'll show you various devices! www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/...

sadly, I have to admit that I (currently planning a trip with my boyfriend) dearly wish AI could plan the trip instead

Portalmania If you could go anywhere, where would you go? And what happens to the people you leave behind?From the author of After World comes a genre-busting ...

Earlier this year I read an advance copy of PORTALMANIA — out this week! — and I really loved it (so did Karen Russell & Mary Gaitskill). It's a collection of unsettling, complex, sometimes melancholy sci-fi stories about escape, possibilities and asexuality. www.simonandschuster.com/books/Portal...

“The pope will be from Chicago” sounds like an 1880s Republican’s dire prediction for if we don’t stop Irish immigration

I’m the daughter of a cattle rancher. Could I ever ditch beef? Beef is tied to my cultural identity — because of its complicated, colonial history.

For a long time, I thought ditching beef would mean missing out on some grand connection I'd gain at the table. For @vox.com, I wrote about reconnecting with Indigenous foodways, while also acknowledge the cultural pull of beef — as a Texan. www.vox.com/future-perfe...

This workplace benefit is helping parents — and boosting businesses. Could it backfire? Most Americans have no access to employer-sponsored child care. That could soon change.

There's a new push for employer-sponsored child care. Is this as good as it gets — or a mistake that repeats the problems of employer-sponsored health care? From @rachelmcohen.bsky.social www.vox.com/child-care/4...

I grew up in Silicon Valley and first heard this phrase at 16. I am, shall we say, amused to see it recounted here as still the reasoning du jour. From an @nybooks.com piece reviewing new books on sexual ethics: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...