- “Writing Fan Fiction Gave Me Community and Creative Freedom”
- An essay about finding a writing community (and freedom from perfectionism) online
- “Mulan: Badass Warrior or Devoted Daughter?”
- An essay about the irony and appropriation of China’s woman warrior
- “My Dad Is Chronically Ill & It Makes Dating Complicated”
- An essay about navigating dating and grieving.
- “Lonely in the City”
- An essay about learning to love a patient, as a patient.
- Second place winner for the University of Pennsylvania Gibson Peacock Creative Nonfiction Prize.
- “Growing Pains”
- An essay on misplaced longing.
- “Eulogy for the Living”
- An essay about a father’s diagnosis and a daughter’s regret
- Second place winner in the Columbia Gold Circle Awards for “First person experience”
- “Finding Love in the Community After Loss”
- An essay examining the different kinds of love we let into our lives after loss.
- “Proactive Mourning”
- An essay about the intersections of art and mourning and my experiences working on a podcast exploring grief.
- “Maybe Being a Starving Artist Wasn’t So Sexy After All”
- An op-ed about growing up and the age-old question of passion versus pension. Do we really have to make a choice so rapidly?
- “On Gratitude and Grieving”
- An essay about lessons learned on the eve of a remission and recovery.
- “The ‘What If’ Conundrum: Leaving that Mentality behind at Graduation”
- A senior column saying goodbye to all that (and undergrad)
- “Illusions”
- An essay examining chronic illness and body image
- “Pavlov’s People”
- An essay on caregiving and parenting
- “Becoming a Member of the Sick Parents Society”
- An essay about my experience apprenticing for a podcast that explores the nuances of parental loss, while having a sick parent myself.
Sabrina Lu Qiao 