Phuc Tran is a writer, tattooer, and classicist. His memoir Sigh, Gone, won the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. He has been a high school Latin teacher and tattooer for over twenty years, for which he has won no awards. His TED talk, “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s TED Radio Hour. He has a children’s book series in collaboration with bestselling illustrator Pete Oswald entitled Cranky. He is currently working on a novel that he is certain no one wants to read.

*photo by Jeff Roberts Imaging

Carissa Johnson is known for her straight-forward lyrics, driving melodies, and her band’s inimitable live energy. Her music career began in Boston and has taken her all over the United States, playing countless shows since 2016, solo as well as with her band, The Cure-Alls. Carissa and her band won the Boston Music Award for Best New Act of the Year the same year they won Boston’s legendary Rock’n’Roll Rumble.

*photo by Lucy Opazo

Michael Patrick MacDonald is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, which won the American Book Award, a New England Literary Lights Award, and an Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. This year, All Souls will be released as a 25th Anniversary New Edition with a new afterword and speaking tour. MacDonald is Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University's Honors Department, where he teaches “Non Fiction Writing and Social Justice Issues” as well as a course abroad studying peace-building in the North of Ireland through a decolonial lens. At Harvard University Summer School, he teaches “Storytelling and Global Justice,” and he writes and speaks on topics ranging from race and class in America to transforming trauma, to voice, agency, and leadership and is currently writing his third book of narrative nonfiction.

Joe Gittleman & Amy Griffin plus special guest Richie Parsons –  Joe Gittleman was in the seminal Boston bands Gang Green and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. He has just released a solo record and is touring with his band, The Kilograms. Amy Griffin is a renowned guitar player from another seminal Boston band, The Raging Teens, and is currently playing in the rockabilly-alt duo, Jittery Jack. Joe and Amy are friends and bandmates from the Boston band, Avoid One Thing. Also joining in is Richie Parsons, yet another eminent Boston musician, currently playing in the band Unnatural Ax. The trio is excited to be sharing some old collaborations and as well as newer songs.

*photo by random stranger…