Born in a mountainous province in Northern Vietnam, Trung came to the U.S. as an exchange student in 2006. The cornfields and gentle rolling hills of French Lick, Indiana, were an unexpected sight at first — he had thought French Lick would look like New York — but it grew on him, he says, and nurtured his soul for the next 11 years. In 2017, Trung returned to Vietnam, got married, and had two kids. The cornfields of Indiana beckoned him back in 2024. He’s now a freelance journalist, figuring out how to care for a family of four with his writing.
