Blogging may be the hobby most readily associated with expats in Korea, but it is far from the only kind of writing they do.

For the last four years Seoul Writers’ Workshop has been bringing together and nurturing the talents of expats with a passion for fiction. The next two weeks will see the group’s fourth anthology of expat writing go on sale.


“This year is pretty different,” Seoul Writers’ Workshop co-founder Chris Sanders told Expat Living.

“In the past we always went under the pseudonym ‘Every Second Sunday,’ and we didn’t have any kind of theme or community except that all of the authors had to have lived in Korea for the past year.

“Now we have expanded a little bit: We say if you’ve lived in Korea in the last two years and we chose a theme this time and that theme was ‘Out of Place,’ and we thought that would give a little more cohesion to the stories and drive some creative impulses in that direction.”

Sanders said the group has printed 300 copies for this year and about half have already been sold through friends and the group’s fortnightly workshops.

While the collection was officially launched in November, it only goes on sale at What the Book in Seoul’s Itaewon and on Amazon.com and Lulu.com in the next two weeks. And as with every year, the anthology not only offers original writing drawn from expats’ experiences of Korea and beyond, but a chance to support a good cause as well.

“In the past we have always supported the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, we think they have a really important mission.

“One of the essays we chose (this year) dealt with the comfort women and the House of Sharing. And given they were coming up on their 1,000th protest ... we thought it would be good for this year to help support the House of Sharing,” he said.

Looking on back Seoul Writers’ Workshop’s evolution, Sanders said that social networking was a major factor in turning a group of loosely connected writers into a community with regular workshops and events.

“We popped up at a very important time for the expat community. There had been a group of writers that every year would coalesce around national novel writing month in November.

“What happened at that time was that Facebook became available to everyone and suddenly a lot creative groups like ourselves and some of the theater groups and other artist groups all began to form lasting communities,” he said.

And his opinion, it came about at just the right time, when many more people “were wanting something more than just playing soccer on the weekend or going out and getting hammered on soju.”

“I think Seoul Writers’ Workshop was one of the groups that popped up at that time that had a really important, if relatively small (role),” he said.

“Our size is only about 300 members. (But) we play a role we will continue to do that in the coming years.”

“Out of Place” is priced at 8,000 won and will be available at What the Book, Amazon.com and Lulu.com in the next fortnight.


By John Power
(john.power@heraldcorp.com)