Capital Questions with Serena Chen

If it’s been a hard day at work and I’m in need of a drink I’ll be at… I love the vibe of Hotel Bris­tol, and I go to Rogue and Vag­a­bond a lot; we had our first HVNGRY writers meet-up there. I do enjoy a good stout beer. But to be hon­est, I’m not the type of per­son who goes out a lot. Like if it’s been a hard day at work and I want to treat myself, I’d prob­ably just go to the liquor store, grab myself a nice craft beer, go home and watch some good TV.

The next day if I’m in need of a hearty feed and a cup of cof­fee I’ll be at… Sweet Moth­ers Kit­chen get­ting their fried chick­en waffles. It’s just the best thing ever. If people didn’t sur­round me, I would have been cry­ing with happiness.

If I need a slice of inspir­a­tion you can’t go past… The start-up cul­ture in Wel­ling­ton. It’s so inspir­ing to have so many like-minded, pas­sion­ate people in one place. The people I’m liv­ing with right now are in a start-up accel­er­at­or, and being sur­roun­ded by those kinds of motiv­ated people just makes you want to get stuff done.

I know I shouldn’t, but Wellington’s best-kept secret is… Before I moved to Wel­ling­ton I didn’t see it as a tech-savvy city. I saw it as a very cul­tur­al city, lots of art, and law stu­dents every­where. But then I came here for Web­stock, and I found it was a city bust­ling with tech start-ups, developers and design­ers doing excit­ing things. 

The thing about HVNGRY that I think people respond to is… The hon­esty and the integ­rity of the magazine. There is some­thing about teen girl magazines that is just so pre­dict­able. HVNGRY is refresh­ing because it has writers who are open and hon­est, and more import­antly the read­ers are the writers. With an open-sub­mis­sion plat­form it gives oppor­tun­ity for people to dis­cuss the top­ics they are inter­ested in, and chances are oth­ers will be inter­ested too! 

My motiv­a­tion when cre­at­ing HVNGRY was… Frus­tra­tion maybe? I was shop­ping with a then boy­friend and star­ted flick­ing through a men’s magazine they had in the fit­ting room. I found the dif­fer­ence from women’s magazines was ridicu­lously strik­ing. There were art­icles about self-motiv­a­tion, and how to nego­ti­ate a high­er wage, get a bet­ter job, power and suc­cess. It’s so rare to see any of those top­ics in women’s magazines. Instead we are taught how to be pleas­ing, and I mean that’s fine, just not all of the time. So I feel it’s import­ant to have places like HVNGRY, just so there are voices out there that teen­agers can read and relate to, and feel empowered.