Back in my first tour in Korea in 2004/05, I wrote a few articles for the Ulsan Pear.  That paper is now defunct but a new medium has risen to fill the void. The Korea Sun is a new, all English, Korea-wide publication that will focus on the arts/entertainment, festivals & events, travel, night life and culture. Not just a paper rag like the Pear, the Korea Sun is a slick-glossy magazine style full of interesting photographs of this country. Although it’s written by foreigners, the vast majority of readers are Korean.

The Korea Sun has been out since March or April of this year. They’ve only published a few months so far. I took a wait-and-see attitude and sat on the sidelines and just read the magazines as they came out and I didn’t contribute. The photos are always great, it has news on events that I otherwise never would have heard of and reviews of restaurants I might never have even found. But the writing, mostly done by English teachers like me here in Korea, was hit or miss. Some of the grammar was really horrid. When the July issue came out, I found enough errors in the writing, some of them egregious, factual errors, that I felt compelled to write the editor. I expressed amazement that some of the writers actually teach English here. What I thought would result in merely a letter to the editor in the next issue resulted in a face-to-face meeting with the publisher. We talked about his vision for the magazine, his problems with motivating the (mostly) young writers and how he needed someone to ride herd on the process of writing, article selection and editing. We decided I could be that man.

Beginning this week, and starting with the October issue of the Korea Sun, I am now the Editor-in-Chief.  I’ll be organizing and motivating the writers, and writing my own articles as well as the editor’s page in the front. No pay. It’s all volunteer. But it’s something to add to the resume, the scrapbook and the memory banks. And a bonus, it keeps me out of the pool halls.

Stay tuned for more news.