Sean Madigan Hoen (pronounced Hayne) was raised in Dearborn, Michigan and is the author of SONGS ONLY YOU KNOW: A Memoir. His short stories and prose have been published in BOMB Magazine, where he was awarded the 2011 Fiction Award, as well as The American Literary Review, Paste Magazine, and many others. He was awarded a 2010 teaching fellowship from Columbia University, and has received support from The Anderson Center and the Jerome Foundation. In a previous life he was a song-and-dance man, traveling in used conversion vans and performing to what one might kindly refer to as “intimate crowds.” More recently, he’s been working on a short story collection and a novel. Hoen has taught at Columbia University and Western Michigan University. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Books by Sean Madigan Hoen

Songs Only You Know: A Memoir

by Sean Madigan Hoen - Nonfiction

Eighteen-year-old Sean Madigan Hoen was struggling to keep his involvement in the city’s hardcore punk scene a secret from his family. Then he learned that his father, too, had a second life --- as a crack addict. SONGS ONLY YOU KNOW begins in the '90s and spans a decade during which the family fights to hold itself together. The closer Sean comes to realizing his musical dream, the further he drifts from his family and himself.