Karissa Chen

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Karissa Chen's fiction and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Gulf Coast, PEN America, Guernica, and Longreads. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan in 2015-16 and received a 2019 Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and  is a proud Fellow of both Kundiman and VONA/Voices. She currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief at Hyphen and a Contributing Fiction Editor at Catapult. She is working on a novel.

Stories

Cover Photo: A group of people in exercise gear running with their backs to the camera
In Taiwan, Running Led Me to My Community—and to Myself

A place doesn’t begin to feel like a home until it contains people you care for.

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Karissa Chen
Oct 20, 2021
Columns | Diary Of A Reverse Immigrant
Cover Photo: A photograph of a dozen tea eggs, unpeeled and on a flat surface. The eggs are a sepia brown with a network of dark brown crack-like lines across their surface.
Tea Eggs Have Always Tasted Like Home

In the first weeks after my arrival in Taipei, I ate more of these eggs than I’d like to admit.

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Karissa Chen
Aug 02, 2021
Columns | Diary Of A Reverse Immigrant
Cover Photo: photograph of a newborn baby yawning, tucked under a sheet with a white teddy bear
When I Froze My Eggs, I Wasn’t Prepared for the Depression That Followed

I wish I had been warned—not because it would have changed my mind about the procedure, but because I might have been more prepared.

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Karissa Chen
Oct 16, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: A gold bracelet shaped as a robe and covered in bandages, placed on a white background
My Body, My Story

What I forgot, for years and years, were the details of what my body experienced at the time. But my body did not forget.

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Karissa Chen
Oct 07, 2019
People | Bodies
Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult
Family, Fate, and Fortune Tellers: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Just Want a Baby

I didn’t know, anymore, how to date like a normal person—how to give a potential relationship the space to grow into the family I dreamt of.

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Karissa Chen
Aug 06, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: Photograph by Tanaphong Toochinda/Unsplash
What I Did for the Chance to Have a Baby Someday

I flew to Taiwan the year I turned thirty-six, a trip I’d booked solely for the purpose of freezing my eggs.

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Karissa Chen
May 22, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: Photograph by Gabrielle Henderson/Unsplash
How I (Finally) Decided to Freeze My Eggs

Sometimes I joke that I’m already primed for motherhood because I’m already well-versed in guilt, blaming myself for things over which I have little control.

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Karissa Chen
Apr 18, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: Photographs by NASA and Navid Golpour | Photo illustration by Matt Ortile
How Did I Get to Thirty-Five Without Really Understanding My Reproductive System?

I wanted to know more about my fertility because I thought it might help me prepare for a someday I wasn’t willing to give up on.

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Karissa Chen
Mar 18, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: Photograph by rawpixel
Thinking About My Future and My Fertility at Thirty-Six (and Eight Months)

The desire to be a mother is now something that lingers inside of me, an omnipresent hunger.

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Karissa Chen
Feb 19, 2019
Columns | My Future, My Fertility
Cover Photo: Tallulah Pomeroy
Museum For Women Who Did Not Appear

“There is a difference between a choice and a wish. We were never asked what we wished for.”

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Karissa Chen
Jun 02, 2017
Fiction | Short Story