Phuc Tran has been a frequent guest on Maine Public Radio and a regular, live storyteller in Portland and Maine. Most recently, he was a storyteller for The Moth Mainstage in Portland. He has delivered many keynote addresses for numerous academic, non-profit, and corporate organizations nationally. Those include the American Classical League, Google, The International Association of Trial Lawyers, the Classical Association of New England, and others.
Also, NPR’s TED Radio Hour featured his 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive.”
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. In addition, Sigh, Gone was named a best book of 2020 by Amazon, Audible, Kirkus Reviews, and many other publications.
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. Phuc graduated Bard College in 1995 with a BA in Classics and received the Callanan Classics Prize. He taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in New York at the Collegiate School. He also was an instructor at Brooklyn College’s Summer Latin Institute. Most recently, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine.
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 Hardcover
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 HarperCollins
From the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of the Food Group series, Pete Oswald, and debut picture book author Phuc Tran, this is a hilarious picture book about big trucks, big feelings, and even bigger friendships!
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 Trade Paperback
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Sigh, Gone
A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In
Flatiron Books, Macmillan
For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature.
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Diversity and Representation in the Classroom What are our students reading and wrestling with in the classroom? Who is in the classroom? How are they guided? The question of DEI in the classroom isn’t just a simple fix of reading more BIPOC authors.
Refugee Experience (Vietnamese-American) and Intergenerational Trauma/Divergence How do refugees and their children navigate and bridge the gaps that form between each other? How is it possible?
Visit Phuc Tran’s website and follow him on Instagram. Check out additional media and press updates here.
Sigh, Gone listed on the TODAY Show’s “Looking for an inspirational story? 10 feel-good books to read right now.”
Read ‘Sigh, Gone’ memoir blends books, punk, and a refugee’s fight to fit in in the Boston Globe.
Listen to Phuc Tran on the Dear Asian Americans podcast: “A Lifelong Love of Writing Turns Into a Story Still Being Written…”
Sigh, Gone has been featured on Best Books of 2020 lists for: Amazon, Audible, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, Marie Claire, BookRiot, AudioFile Magazine, and Next Big Idea Club.
—BookPage (starred review)
"In actuality and on the pages of this memoir, Tran's life goes off-road, defies reading plans or most other kinds of plans. Which makes SIGH, GONE a congenial read for our chaotic time."
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air
"The book powerfully explores themes of assimilation, racism, complex and abusive family dynamics, and the challenge of coming into one’s own. In other words, Sigh, Gone is like all great works of literature — it asks big questions, universal in their specificity."
—LA Review of Books
"Tran also makes his narrating debut—prefaced by an actual drumroll, yes!—with energy, empathy, and plenty of curse words, as he shares his no-holds-barred coming-of-age journey in small-town Carlisle, Pennsylvania."
—Booklist (starred review for audiobook)
"A powerful memoir that proves the transformative power of music and literature.... Tender and even comic, it is, in his own words, ‘a misfit’s memoir,’ exchanging estrangement and adversity for hard-won accomplishment."
—Center for Fiction, "Lose Yourself in These Riveting Personal Narratives"
"Filled with euphoric flights of discovery, this complex and rewarding story of a book-enriched life vividly illustrates how literature can serve as a window to a new life."
—Publishers Weekly