Phuc Tran

Phuc Tran is an author, high school Latin teacher and tattoo artist based in Portland, Maine. His memoir, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, was released in 2020 and is a coming of age story that follows his family history from Vietnam to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where they were resettled due to the Vietnam War. His writing explores the complexities and realities of growing up in America as a punk-rock Vietnamese kid in small white town. The book, which was his first, won the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Memoir and the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction. It was also named a best book of 2020 by Amazon, Audible, Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. His 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour.

Phuc & Rachael recorded this conversation on November 21, 2022 in Portland, Maine.