Angela Chen

Instructor & Writer

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

view 2 past classes »

Stories

Cover Photo: Tallulah Pomeroy

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Asexuality

“Though desire for sex is considered one of our four primal drives, I lack such a desire almost completely.”

Oct 12, 2017

Cover Photo: photo via Miki Yoshihito/flickr

When Quitting Is the Harder, Better Choice

On learning to let “grit” go.

Sep 19, 2017

Cover Photo: J. Longo

Is It Possible to Truly Know Yourself? (Probably Not—and That’s Okay.)

There is opportunity in forcibly rewriting a story, in trying out identities that might not feel true at first.

Jul 18, 2017

Cover Photo: photo via genevieve719/flickr

How an Abundance of Fitness Data Keeps Me From Obsessing Over a Single Number

It is the act of recording all this data that has helped me step away from identifying so strongly with it.

Jun 14, 2017

Cover Photo: photo via Imran Ali/flickr

Genetic Testing Can Tell You a Lot About Yourself—But What If You Don’t Want to Know?

I wanted the most information possible and thought I had nothing to fear. Then my mother began to lose her memory.

May 08, 2017

Cover Photo: Wellcome Images/flickr

How I Learned to Trust in Therapy—Even Without Homework

It was the form of therapy I feared that changed me for the better.

Apr 10, 2017

Cover Photo: Photo by Michael Summers/flickr

Stay or Go? or, The Case Against Playing it Safe

My lesson should have been “choose risk”—change didn’t always mean closing a door.

Mar 07, 2017

Cover Photo: Image via iStock/MHJ

Why I No Longer Make Predictions

I believed I could be protected from what lay ahead as long as I saw what was coming.

Jan 03, 2017

1
2