Hanh Nguyen is the Executive Editor for Salon.com where she’s written about TV, film, food and popular culture since 2019. She launched Salon’s first Culture newsletter The Swell, which delves into the art that’s built to last, in 2025.
Nguyen won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards prize twice for her film features “Connected through inyeon”: Teo Yoo reflects on the fate that guided his career and to “Past Lives” and “What second chances mean”: Ke Huy Quan’s career love story as a sidekick no more in the online division. Her story Actor “Sympathizer” Soldier Spy: How Australia’s Hoa Xuande became the ultimate double agent also took second place in the online division for Diversity in the TV/Streaming Industry.
Nguyen co-hosts the “Good Pop Culture Club” podcast, which examines the good pop that gets us through our days, from an Asian American perspective and has lent her expert commentary to a variety of media outlets, including NPR, American Public Media and the CBC. She also regularly guests on LAist’s AirTalk, has moderated panels for film and TV and has appeared as an expert to speak about the entertainment industry and journalism. She’s also contributed writing to 2023’s “The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America” and 2012’s “Beyond the Red Carpet,” and her work has appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, TVGuide.com, IndieWire.com, Los Angeles Magazine and LA Weekly. She was a movie critic and reporter for Tribune Media, for which her work was syndicated in newspapers across the United States.
Nguyen was named as one of the 25 journalism leaders for Poynter’s revamped Leadership Academy in 2025. She’s also served as a Board Member in the Television Critics Association, where she’s been a member since the early 2000s. She’s a Rotten Tomatoes-Approved critic and is also a member of the Asian American Journalists Association, Writers Guild of America East, the Online News Association, L.A. Press Club and GALECA Critics.
Nguyen is often down to try new and challenging adventures, including voice acting (she’s dubbed English dialogue for anime), fencing, bouldering, surfing and learning far too many foreign languages at once (she’s making headway on Spanish but her Vietnamese and Korean need work). You can find her thoughts about storytelling, pop culture, creativity, food, travel and cats on Bluesky, Instagram and Threads.
