nicole zhu
I'm a writer and developer based in New York. I read 52 books every year. Sign up for my biweekly writing newsletter, which has been recommended in Poets & Writers and Ann Friedman's Inbox Awards.
Check out past episodes of Sweet and Sour, a podcast I cohosted about the intersections of Asian American identity with culture, work, and lifestyle.
writing
fiction
Linda Liu, Pigeon Pages
- Winner of the 2022 Pigeon Pages Flash Contest
- Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2022
@AudreyTCWrites Mentioned You In Their Story, The Lumiere Review
Crazy, Stupid, Tacos, Taco Bell Quarterly
There Is No Human Resources Department at the Candy Cooperative, Catapult
Keeping Tabs, Jellyfish Review
- Nominated for Best Small Fictions 2020
essays
Chinese Cooking Helps Me Connect With My Mother—And Helps Me Prepare to Lose Her, Electric Literature
My Discomfort with Comfort Food, Eater
The Weight of Words: Self-Acceptance Doesn’t Have to Be a Solo Journey, Catapult
The Discomfort with Comfort Food, Slant'd
technology
Teaching and Brainstorming Inclusive Technical Metaphors, Source
Getting Started With UI Templating, The Recompiler
How we pulled off a new pull request template, Vox Product Blog
media
A NYT tweet on books by women 'didn't play well.' Here’s why., Columbia Journalism Review
Limited connectivity: Including readers whose only access might be a mobile phone, Knight Lab
No soft focus: Behind the design and launch of Broadly, Knight Lab
Andrew Golis on launching This.cm and creating a social "magazine experience" on the web, Knight Lab
other
How I'm Actually Setting a Reading Resolution and Achieving It in 2020, Girls' Night In
speaking
Lean in or lie down? Balancing jobs, side projects, and hobbies
April 2019, Flawless Hacks
I gave the keynote at Flawless Hacks about the differences between careers, side projects, and hobbies, why it's increasingly difficult to make these distinctions, and ways to strike a balance in each of these areas and detect burnout when it's avoidable.
The changing magic of media mentorship
December 2017, SRCCON:WORK
David Yee (my then-manager, now mentor) and I gave a talk at SRCCON:WORK about what effective mentorship looks like in an industry whose shape is rapidly and anxiously shifting.
Toward better metaphors: Accessible and inclusive ways to explain technical work
August 2017, SRCCON
I facilitated a session at SRCCON where we brainstormed common topics, concepts, and processes that we thought would benefit from explanation on interdisciplinary teams, then came up with a list of accessible and inclusive metaphors to describe them.
Get yourself a #squad
November 2016, Ela Conf
At the second annual Ela Conf, I talked about the importance of peer mentorship in tech and the positive impact of support and solidarity from those people closest to you.
How to read 52 books in 52 weeks
March 2016, NICAR
One of ten lightning talk proposals accepted and given at the IRE/NICAR Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference, this talk was about my project of reading 52 books in 52 weeks, what I learned, and tips for tackling your own side projects.
readings
Ditmas Lit
September 2022, Hinterlands Bar
The Cosmos Community Reading Series, featured on CBS News
March 2022, Yu & Me Books
Slant'd Issue 02 Launch Party
March 2019, Museum of Chinese in America
honors & support
Tin House Winter Workshop
Winter 2023, Alejandro Varela
Kenyon Review Writers Workshop
Summer 2022, Alexandra Kleeman
Aspen Summer Words — Financial aid
Summer 2022, Lan Samantha Chang