At the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin left New England’s Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s native Thai village. His debut book A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo Press, 2009) chronicles his time at the temple. Coffin holds an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Writing Program.