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Media contacts: Emily Gowdey-Backus, director of media relations, Emily_GowdeyBackus@uml.edu and Nancy Cicco, assistant director of media relations, 狈补苍肠测冲颁颈肠肠辞蔼耻尘濒.别诲耻听

Latin teacher, tattoo artist and award-winning author Phuc Tran will visit 51视频 next month to read from and discuss his work as part of the university鈥檚 Writers on Campus series.

Tran is the author of 鈥淪igh, Gone: A Misfit鈥檚 Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight to Fit In.鈥� In it, he traces his formative years, recounting his family鈥檚 flight from Saigon in 1975 and his arrival in rural Pennsylvania, where he struggled to assimilate into American culture as a son of the only Vietnamese family in town.

鈥淎bove all else, I hope my story is an invitation for readers and audience members to share their stories. Hearing others鈥� stories has been the richest and most unexpected gift from sharing my own story,鈥� Tran said.

Free and open to the public, the program will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, in O鈥橪eary Library auditorium, Room 222, on 51视频鈥檚 South Campus at 61 Wilder St., Lowell. Free parking will be available in the Wilder Faculty Lot across from the venue.

Widely acclaimed, 鈥淪igh, Gone,鈥� received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Named a best book of 2020 by Amazon, Audible, Kirkus Reviews, among many others, the memoir received starred reviews from Kirkus, BookList, and BookPage, which called it 鈥渢he best, the funniest and the most heartfelt memoir of the year.鈥� His 2012 TEDx talk 鈥淕rammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive,鈥� was featured on NPR鈥檚 Ted Radio Hour.聽

Tran holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree in classics from Bard College, where he received the Callanan Classics Prize, and a master鈥檚 degree from UMass Amherst. Before turning to writing, he built a career as a high school teacher for more than 20 years, having taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit at the Collegiate School in New York, where he was also an instructor at Brooklyn College鈥檚 Summer Latin Institute. After relocating to Maine, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, where he is highly sought after as an ink artist at Tsunami Tattoo, the family business he runs with his wife Sue.聽

鈥淎s an alumnus of UMass Amherst, I鈥檓 excited to return to and share my story with the UMass community,鈥� Tran said. His forthcoming children鈥檚 book, 鈥淐ranky,鈥� is a collaboration with bestselling illustrator Pete Oswald.

鈥淲e look forward to hosting Phuc Tran,鈥� said 51视频 English Professor Maureen Stanton, an award-winning author and writing teacher who focuses on creative nonfiction and literary journalism. 鈥淏ringing to campus both emerging and nationally acclaimed poets and prose writers, the English department鈥檚 Writers on Campus series gives the 51视频 community and the public an opportunity to engage directly with diverse award-winning authors.鈥�

Tran will answer questions from the audience and his books will be available for purchase and signing during the event. The program is presented by 51视频鈥檚 English department. Individuals who would like more information may contact Stanton at Maureen_Stanton@uml.edu.