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Bucheon, Korea’s UNESCO City of Literature, seeks out comic creators for new Residency program

By John Freeman on February 12, 2020

Bucheon, Korea’s UNESCO City of Literature, has announced the launch of a Residency program of 2020 that hopes to encourage involvement from many comics creators interested in Korean culture. Writers, translators and cartoonists of comics and graphic novels who also live in a City of Literature elsewhere in the world can now apply for the Residency program from Creative Cities, regardless of their creative field.

The UNESCO Cities of Literature is a leading collaborative network of cities that includes Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Manchester, Norwich, Nottingham within the UK and Ireland, with a shared goal to develop and promote the role of literature and creativity in their cities. It brings together a wide range of cultural professionals to share and inspire each other, strengthen exchanges, promote freedom of speech and further develop frameworks for collaboration in key areas.

Bucheon began to take note of the potential of “culture” 20 years ago. Since then, the city has worked hard to promote the cultural content industry by building cultural infrastructure for comics, animation, film, music and libraries and today, the city is highly regarded across South Korea as a centre for animation and film festivals whenever it is mentioned, and as a “city of libraries” by library experts and officials.

Among its many aims for cultural development, the organisation plans to provide writing programs so that all residents, as citizens of a city of literature, can write a book on their own life experiences or other topic of their choice. Writing programs offered by the city will help people obtain a vision to change themselves and the world through literary activities.

The new Residency program aims to increase international exchange and communication, contribute to the mobility of writers, translators and cartoonists, offer a creative and inspiring environment, and provide them an opportunity to introduce their work to Korean readers.

The Bucheon UNESCO City of Literature invite artists who live in member cities of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network or have been recommended by the Creative Cites offices to apply to for this first residency program – and you can find more details here, and an application form.

• Bucheon UNESCO City of Literature | Facebook

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.