Photo by Andria Lo
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 (Catapult, 2022) and Disability Intimacy (Vintage, 2024). She is an alumna of the Tin House and VONA writing workshops. Melissa 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
Asian American Magazine Fights Erasure — SF Weekly
Chinatown’s Endangered Banquet Halls — Fifth & Mission Podcast
How Will Chinatown Survive? — Fifth & Mission Podcast
KERA’s Think — with Krys Boyd
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
San Francisco Arts Commission — Artist Grant, Literary Arts, 2019-20 and 2021-22
Mendocino Coast Writers Conference — Anne G. Locascio Scholar; Memoir, 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
Melissa Hung 