By: Jennifer Lovett Herbranson
It’s ten
degrees outside, and my snot has frozen in my nose. I’m walking up 80 steps
through bare trees to walk out the gate and into the heart of Seoul, South Korea. I
hear the sniffles from my friend Lila, a lawyer-turned-writer. Apparently her
snot isn’t freezing yet. It’s January in Korea. The temperature considered a
heat wave around here.
My family moved
to Korea from Washington DC back in August. Before DC, we lived in Colorado
Springs. It was easy to find writers in both cities – Washington Romance
Writers in DC and Pikes Peak Writers in Colorado. Here? It took months. For an
extroverted writer like myself, my soul needs other writers, for inspiration,
for motivation and for encouragement.
On this day, we’re
headed to a writers meeting in Itaewon (EE-tay-won) -- the most diverse section
of Seoul and where I live. Teeming with expats and embassies squished into just
a few city blocks, the maze of alleys and footpaths are filled with kitsy
Korean tourist shops, restaurants that cater to every nationality on the
planet, and my favorite, a rather large English-language bookstore. It took me
a long, three months to find this bookstore. But oh, when I did ….
The Young Adult
section would make a fifteen year old swoon, and the Just Released section
could put Barnes and Noble out of business. The intoxicating smell of books is
like oxygen. And in every direction, on dusty wooden shelves, were books with
words on it I could read. I cried. Literally, cried.
Finding that
bookstore led to finding something better.
Writers! I hadn’t met another writer other than Lila in months when the bookstore
owner, in accented English, told me about Seoul Collective Writers -- a group
of ex-pats who meet once a month to critique each other’s work. Today, we’re
headed to our third meeting. When we get there, it’s the usual crowd.
Today, we meet
at Dan & Chung’s Coffee House. In Korea, these are called “Coffices”
because people park themselves on the wooden benches and work there – a lot
like folks do at Panera in the States. Dan & Chung’s sits at the top of a
steep hill that kills my calves. If there was a fire department dictating the number
of patrons allowed in this place at one time, it might be 25.
Upon entering
through dingy sliding glass doors, customers walk along a small bar. They order
food or drinks, then head behind a wooden, half wall. To the left are seats
along a bar under the window or a couple of tiny tables with even tinier seats.
To the right is the enclave with slightly more seating and a long bench with
three square tables in front of it. We sit there.
This little
bistro/coffice overlooks the busy section of Itaewon, and like most PPW’s
Writers Night locations, the owner lets us use the place for free as long as
folks buy a drink. For beer drinkers, that’s Korean Hite beer.
For liquor
folks, it’s soju – a potent drink known to put people on the floor in under
three drinks. For this session, I’m critiquing, so I’ll have Hite. Lila, who
submitted her work for the first time, ordered grapefruit soju.
These
sessions remind me of PPW Writers Night in the Springs or Tuesday Night Writes
in DC. The people in those groups became my writing tribe. Folks to share ideas
with, vent frustrations at, or attend conferences with. They kept me motivated
and inspired, as I hope I did for them.
Will this group
be my new tribe? It’s too soon to tell, but we’re here for another two years,
and I found them. That’s a great start.
My blogs for PPW will include lots of
travel and writing experiences here in Asia, and of course, marketing, because
that’s what I do when I’m not writing. I’m headed to Da Nang, Vietnam, next
month for some surfing, and writing.
*Names have been changed to protect the
innocent
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