Born in Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1975 while he was still a toddler. During his childhood in Pennsylvania, he was raised on what he describes as “a steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons, John Hughes, Star Wars, Bones Brigade videos, and bootlegged cassettes of Minor Threat and TSOL.” He has been a Latin teacher, a punk rocker, a skateboarder, and one of the most sought-after tattoo artists in the Northeast. The popularity of his 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive,” featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour, led him to write Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, a memoir described by Kirkus as “Funny, poignant, and unsparing.” Join us for a conversation with Tran about being yourself, fitting in, and making a life of your own in a world that doesn’t always make that easy.
Free event

Phuc Tran has been a high school Latin teacher for more than twenty years while also simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. His acclaimed memoir, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. SIGH, GONE was named a best book of 2020 by Amazon, Audible, Kirkus Reviews, and many other publications.

Samantha Haskell grew up in Blue Hill and became the owner of the community's independent bookstore, Blue Hill Books, in 2017. She is a graduate of College of the Atlantic, on the Board of the Blue Hill Heritage Trust, as well as a member of the Word Festival Steering Committee.