SmokeLong Quarterly

Share This f l Translate this page

Karen Kao

Karen Kao writes lyric essays. Her work has been chosen as a 2025 Special Mention by the Pushcart Prize, a 2024 Notable by The Best American Essays, and winner of the 2022 Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest. A native Angeleno, Karen lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where she is at work on her debut essay collection. You can find her at swimmingupsidedown.substack.com.

Stories in Smokelong Quarterly

Story: By the Way, Now That I Think of It, I Do Have One or Two Things I’d Like to Say to You
Interview: Smoke & Mirrors with Karen Kao

Support SmokeLong Quarterly

Your donation helps writers, editors, reviewers, workshop leaders, and artists get paid for their work. If you’re enjoying what you read here, please consider donating to SmokeLong Quarterly today. We also give a portion of what we earn to the organizations on our "We Support" page.

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest

Deadline November 15th!

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest (The Mikey) is now an annual competition celebrating and compensating the best micro fiction and nonfiction online.

The grand prize winner of The Mikey is automatically nominated for Best Small Fictions and any other prize we deem appropriate. In addition, we will pay the grand prize winner $1000. Second place: $500. Third place $300. Finalists: $100. All finalists and placers will be published in the December ’25 issue of SmokeLong.

Previously published as well as previously unpublished work will be considered.

Learn more…