Melissa Hung is a writer and journalist. She writes about immigrant communities, culture, food, disability, and more. She is the founding editor in chief of Hyphen, an independent Asian American magazine, and the former director of San Francisco WritersCorps, an award-winning arts education program. Her reported stories have been published in NPR, Pacific Standard, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her essays and creative nonfiction appear in Longreads, Catapult, wildness, Vogue, and the anthologies Body Language and Disability Intimacy. Melissa has received support for her creative writing from Tin House, VONA, The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference, where she was a Tennessee Williams Scholar. She is working on a collection of creative nonfiction about her mother, inheritance, and grief. She grew up in Houston, Texas, the eldest child of immigrants. After two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in New York City. 

Likes: cheese, chilaquiles, bargains, faux fur

Dislikes: water getting stuck in your ear after swimming

Press & Appearances

X世代亚裔刊物影响一代人 助亚裔找到身分认同 — World Journal

Redefining ‘Disability Intimacy’ in a New Anthology — KQED Forum

Asian American Magazine Fights Erasure — SF Weekly

Chinatown’s Endangered Banquet Halls — Fifth & Mission Podcast

How Will Chinatown Survive? — Fifth & Mission Podcast

Who Am I Without My Mother Tongue? — KERA Think

Southern Fried Asian Podcast — with Keith Chow

Angry Reader of the Week — Angry Asian Man

Hot 20 Under 40 Nominee Melissa Hung Awarded by Michelle Obama — 7×7

Believe the Hyph — SFGate

Honors & Awards

Sewanee Writers’ Conference — Tennessee Williams Scholar, 2024

San  Francisco Arts Commission — Artist Grant, Literary Arts, 2019-20 and 2021-22

Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference — Anne G. Locascio Memorial Scholar; Memoir contest, first place; 2021

James Beard Foundation Journalism Award — Part of a team at the San Francisco Chronicle for the multimedia project “Many Chinas, Many Tables,” 2019

Contact & Social Media 

melissa@melissahung [dot] xyz

Instagram | Bluesky