Residency Opportunities!

Do you dream of having an opportunity to work on your latest project this fall in one of our sister Cities of Literature? Now is your opportunity to apply for a residency! Learn more below.

Wonju, South Korea

Toji Cultural Center, Wonju, South Korea

Wonju City of Literature is offering a chance for one writer from a City of Literature to come to Wonju and stay at Toji Cultural Centre for eight weeks in October and November 2024.

• Key Information

  •    Applications Due By: May 31

  •      Dates of Residency: September 1 through October 31

  •       Round-trip Air Ticket Provided

  •       Transportation on arrival and departure dates provided

  •       Organic meals are provided at the cafeteria of Toji Cultural Centre

• How to Apply

  1.     Write about yourself
  2.    Write about your literary works, achievements, awards, etc
  3.    Write about your literary world
  4.    Write about why you would like to go to Wonju

  Please note that those interested in the Residency have to write only MS-Word document of more than 1,000 words but not more than 2,000 words(in font size 11 to 12), reflecting all the subjects numbered above. Disproportionate emphasis on only one or two subjects is not encouraged. Balanced approach to each subject is highly recommended.

  Please send your application only to wonjucityoflit@korea.kr no later than May 31.

• Additional Information

  Application not meeting 1,000 words or exceeding 2,000 words will result in a removal from the consideration. For fair assessment, additional portfolio and materials will not be accepted and they will not be considered. Applicants must have strong relationship to a City of Literature.

  The residency opportunity does not roll over to the next year, so please check availability during residency dates before applying.

• Language

  English is a must and applicants should possess the minimum command of B2 level for communication.

•  Selection and Notification

  One final recipient for the Residency will be decided by an independent panel designated by Toji Cultural Centre. Final notification will be available to both the recipient and the coordinator before June 27.

•  Requirements during Residency

  There are no requirements whatsoever for a successful writer during his/her/their stay. The recipient should relax and engage in his/her/their creative activity as much and comfortably as possible in such a tranquil environment around Toji Cultural Centre during the Residency. Korean writers and artists will stay at Toji Cultural Centre during the same period, and the writer is highly recommended to form friendship with them during his/her/their stay. Approximately sixteen up to nineteen writers and artists from Korea and also outside of Korea will stay at Toji Cultural Centre from September 1 to October 31. Just like other writers and artists, the selected recipient should follow the rules of living established at Toji Cultural Centre.

Reykjavík, Iceland

Grondal’s House, Reykjavík, Iceland

In 2024 the Residency Program in Reykjavík will offer the writer a two-week stay in October 2024. The Program is dedicated to all emerging writers, and poets having at least one published book working currently on a writing. The Residency Program is a perfect opportunity to professionalize writing skills, find the optimal conditions for creative work, and present your own writing to a new audience.

• Key Information

  Applications are due by June 14.

  Residency dates are October 1 through October 14.
  
  Reykjavík City of Literature will cover transportation costs to and from Reykjavík, and will offer a stipend of 650 euros.
  

• How to Apply

  Required documents listed below should be sent to: grondalshus@reykjavik.is with the subject: “International Residency Application” + "applicants full name and connected City of Literature"
  
  Required documents:
  Extract from a published text (in original language or English), no more than 2 pages in length.

  Biography/CV

  Optional: recommendation letter, letter of motivation

  
  More information at: https://reykjavik.is/en/city-of-literature/residency

• Additional Information

  Applicant must have:
  A connection with any UNESCO City of Literature outside of Iceland.

  At least one published book (fiction or non-fiction), a poetry collection, screenplay or theatre script by the applicant.

  Work on a literary project during the residency.

• Language

  Upper-intermediate level of spoken English.

• Selection and Notification

  The selected applicant will be notified before the 1st of July 2024.

Granada, Spain

Corrala de Santiago, Granada, Spain

Granada UNESCO City of Literature and the University of Granada are hosting an international residency in November 2024 to foster contacts and connections between literary authors from Granada and those from different cities and countries of the world; to promote the internationalization of literary authors linked to Granada; to foster the internationalization of the cultural fabric of the city of Granada; and to promote Granada as a cultural city and a city that welcomes international creative talent.

• Key Information

  Applications are due before June 20, 2024.

  Residency takes place from November 4 to December 3, 2024.

  Granada City of Literature Unesco will cover the travel expenses of each of the selected writers.

  The University of Granada will cover the accommodation expenses of the two selected writers in single rooms and full board at its guest residence Corrala de Santiago.

• How to Apply

  Applications, duly completed, shall be submitted electronically, before June 20, 2024, to Granada Unesco City of Literature, Betty Hernández, talleres@granadaciudaddeliteraturaunesco.com

  Application and more information: https://granadaciudaddeliteratura.com/en/granada-writers-in-residence-programme-2024/

• Language

  Intermediate to advanced level of English or Spanish.

• Selection and Notification

  Criteria include:

  -Have published at least two books (novel, essay, poetry, etc.), excluding self-publishing.

  -Intermediate to advanced level of English or Spanish.

  -Synopsis of the literary project you intend to develop during your stay in Granada.

  It will be valued, although it is not compulsory:

  -Knowledge of Spanish.

  -Cultural and historical interest in the city of Granada.

  -Excerpt from one of the author’s published books, translated into Spanish or English, with a minimum of 1500 words and a maximum of 3000.

  -Letter(s) of recommendation.

  The selected writers will be announced on July 24, 2024 on the Granada Unesco City of Literature website (www.granadaciudaddeliteratura.com).

• Requirements during Residency

  Writers-in-residence must commit themselves to participate in activities related to the local literary system proposed by the Program.

  Writers-in-residence will commit themselves to use the time of the residency to carry out their literary project, and may not carry out other public activities with other institutions, nor in other cities, without prior communication to those responsible for the Programme. Likewise, they will undertake to publicly disseminate (on social networks, etc.) their stay as international writers-in-residence in Granada.

The Business of Books Resources

This fall Seattle City of Literature hosted three workshops in a series titled “The Business of Books.” The series was created with community to offer resources, build skills and connections for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) literary entrepreneurs.
The series was created and presented in partnership with African American Writers’ Association, Business Impact Northwest, Hugo House, Indigenous People’s Institute, Langston Seattle, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, Seattle City of Literature, Seattle Credit Union, The Seattle Public Library “Library to Business” Program, Seattle Office of Economic Development, Seattle Urban Book Expo.

Thank You to Our Panelists

 We’re grateful to the panelists who shared their expertise throughout the series.

September 22:
Gary Luke, former publisher Sasquatch Books
Karen Maeda Allman, formerly of Elliott Bay Book Company
Jeffrey Cheatham II, Seattle Urban Book Expo
Christina Vega, Blue Cactus Press

October 8:
Susan Perrault, Business Impact Northwest
Michael Wells, Seattle Office of Economic Development Small Business Advocate
Stephanie Lachman, Craft3
Kalani Kapahua, Third Place Books
Edwin Lindo, Estelita’s Library
Jay Lyman, The Seattle Public Library

December 6:
Taj Benford, Seattle Credit Union
Robert Williams, Rainier Valley Community Development Fund
Kristina Clark, Loving Room Books
Jay Lyman, The Seattle Public Library
Angela Garbes, author Essential Labor
Joyce Chen, The Seventh Wave Magazine
Marcus Harrison Green, author Readying to Rise

Resources from the Workshops

Library to Business Resources
The Seattle Public Library “Library to Business” program gives you free access to valuable research and databases that provide information about competitors, customers, market trends and more. Attend an event to connect with experts, learn about tools or meet with a business librarian.
Business and Nonprofit
How to Start Your Business

Financial Resources
These are just a few organizations and institutions that offer small business support.
Business Impact Northwest  
Craft3
Rainier Valley Community Development Fund
Seattle Credit Union
Seattle Office of Economic Development

Resources For Writers
A few of the resources for writers that were discussed.
African American Writers’ Alliance
Clarion West Writers Workshop
Hugo House
Kweli Journal
La Sala
Roots Words Wounds
Seattle Escribe
Seattle City of Literature Community Catalog
Seattle Urban Book Expo

Resources For Booksellers and Publishers
A few of the resources for booksellers and publishers that were discussed.
American Booksellers Association
Bookstore Training Group
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association
Seattle Urban Book Expo

Thanks to 4Culture, The Seattle Public Library, the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation, The Seattle Times, and The Seattle Public Library Foundation for their support of the series.

Help us tell the story of Seattle's stories!

Photo by Ryan Wilson on Unsplash

You know that Seattle is made of stories—that’s one of the reasons we’re a UNESCO City of Literature. Now it’s time to tell these stories with a literary map of the city.

What people and places do you think should be included?

Some typical examples might be:
- The former residence of a prominent writer
- An event venue that has played an important part in Seattle's literary life
- The location of a deeply significant historical event

We're already considering Seattle's well-known bookstores and libraries, but if you've got a lesser-known suggestion, let us know!

 
Some things to consider as you think of suggestions:

- What has been the long-term impact on the community?
- What has been the long-term impact on Seattle’s profile as a literary city and/or the regional literary scene?
- If suggesting an author, did they reside in Seattle for substantial amount of time? ( In order to keep the list manageable, we’re only considering deceased authors at this time.) 

More Information About the Literary Map Project

Photo by Jay Heike on Unsplash

Community Listening

After extensive interviews with other map creators in our fellow Cities of Literature, in early 2020, Seattle City of Literature convened a group of stakeholders to provide input on people and places to be included in the map. Over the course of several meetings we compiled a preliminary list which you can see here.

We’re grateful for the input of these individuals and organizations:

Frank Abe, Author
Iisaaksiichaa Ross Braine, University of Washington
Jim Cantú, El Centro de la Raza
Claudia Castro Luna, Author
Jill LaPointe, Lushootseed Research
Tim Lennon, LANGSTON
Jolene Haas, The Duwamish Tribe
Elisheba Johnson and Inye Wokoma, Wa Na Wari
Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, Black Heritage Society of Washington
Rosemary Jones, The National Nordic Museum
Karen Maeda Allman, Elliott Bay Book Company
Miguel Maestes, El Centro de la Raza
Christina Roberts, Indigenous Peoples Institute, Seattle University
Jazmyn Scott, Arte Noir

Several additional organizations have agreed to review the map throughout the development process, and we’ll keep updating our contributors list to reflect their input

Format

The map will be made available in both print and digital editions. Due to the constraints of the form, the printed map may include fewer points of interest than the digital.

The People Behind the Map

Designer: Erin Shigaki/Purple Gate Designs

Erin Shigaki was born and raised in Seattle, WA, where she recently returned after many years on the east coast, studying and working in design and art education. Her homecoming has paved a path for public art commissions and grants to create work that is community based and focused on the experiences of communities of color, often the World War II incarceration of her community. Erin is passionate about highlighting similarities between that history, the inhumane detention and family separation immigrants face today, and other systemic violence and injustices black and brown people continue to face. She is keen to explore intergenerational trauma and the emergence of beauty and intimacy despite harsh circumstances. Erin’s work also examines the act of reclamation: of land, language and culture. She believes that using art to tell stories about these moments can educate, redress wrongs, and incrementally heal.

Erin is a community activist, and helps run an annual pilgrimage to Minidoka, the American concentration camp where her family was incarcerated. She is also a part of Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end detention and incarceration for all.

Erin holds a B.A. from Yale University and completed additional design and art study at American University and in Brissago, Switzerland, among others. She has exhibited in Seattle, WA at such places as The Wing Luke Museum, Occidental Park, Nihonmachi Alley, Cornish Playhouse, and ARTS at King Street Station. She was a 2018 Artist in Residence at Densho.

Learn more: https://www.purplegatedesign.com/about/

Cartographer: Gregory T. Woolston

Gregory is a graduate student in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he researches relationships between architectural, cartographic, and urban design and racism, as well as social movements working toward spatial justice. He is also a cartographer with a few prints for sale and available for hire.

Learn more: http://gwoolston.me/

Projected Timeline (subject to change):

February 2022: Request community input
December 2022: Draft of Print Map Complete
January 2023: Community Review
February 2023: Print Maps Complete
March 2023: Digital Map Complete

Seattle's Membership Monitoring Report

Every four years, cities within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network each submit a report that details the work of the previous four years and includes an action plan for the forthcoming years. Seattle was excited to submit our first “Membership Monitoring Report” at the end of November 2021.
It was a wonderful opportunity to look back at the accomplishments of our literary community, and to look forward to the work yet to be done.

We thought it would be fun to share the report with all of you as well. Thanks to Stacy Nguyen Creative for the beautiful design. Enjoy!

International Translation Day: Meet Some Seattle Translators

It’s that one day a year when we all light a candle for St. Jerome: International Translation Day! Placed as we are between multiple languages and cultures, Seattle is a natural home for translators, and for cross-cultural exchange. Below are a few people and institutions that are making Seattle an International City of Literature.

The first great resource is the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS), a regional chapter of the American Translators Association. NOTIS provides a wide range of services, information and events, including – in happier times, anyway – local meetups for translators to get together and share their experiences across language pairs and genres.

The University of Washington – and its Press in particular – have been powerhouses of language research, multilingual archives, and translation for decades, so it’s no surprise that the UW has also started a translation hub, which is meant to knit together a wide range of people and programs, raising the profile of translations, translators, and translation studies. They put on semi-regular events; you can sign up for their newsletter (and subscribe to various social media) here.

Nicholaas Barr

And no surprise, furthermore, that both of our featured translators today are affiliated with the UW! First up is Nicolaas Barr, Director of Study Abroad and lecturer at the UW’s Comparative History of Ideas. A translator from the Dutch, his most recent translation publication is the memoir of Moroccan-Dutch politician Tofik Dibi, titled Djinn, published earlier this year by SUNY Press, as part of their Queer Politics and Cultures series. From the publisher’s description:

“A bestseller upon its publication in Dutch in 2015, it tells the poignant, at times heartbreaking, story of Dibi’s coming-of-age as a gay Muslim man with humor and grace.”

In an interview with the UW News, Barr talks about how the memoir “cuts through the dominant ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative between supposedly tolerant Europe, on the one hand, and minoritized people, especially Muslims, on the other.

“Dibi was born in the Netherlands, speaks Dutch as a first language, and grew up steeped in Dutch culture and institutions, yet like other people of color, he is often treated as a permanent newcomer — or worse, as an unwanted threat. In addressing these themes, “Djinn” offers a compelling counter-narrative, showing how Dibi’s multiple identities are deeply entwined in the country’s distinctive cultural landscape.”

Tofik Dibi. Photo by Lisa Zilver

Our second featured translator is Mary Childs, also at the UW’s Comparative History of Ideas department (probably no accident that many translators have found a home there), where she teaches courses on Environmental Humanities and Post-Soviet studies. She’s been translating from the Georgian since 2007, and her upcoming novel translation is Form 100, by Zviad Kvaratskhelia, due out in October from BookLand Press. Kvaratskhelia is an editor and publisher in Tbilisi, and his short story “Peridé”, also translated by Childs, was featured in Comma Press’ collection The Book of Tbilisi.

Zviad Kvaratskhelia

We asked her to tell us a bit about the experience of translating Form 100, which won a SABA literary prize for Best Novel of the Year in 2016. “The novel was difficult for me when I first started working on it, as it deals with violence against women in the country of Georgia, and the ramifications of that violence in the lives of the perpetrators. I had a few years break between initially translating and then editing for publication, and in this time, I researched more about domestic violence in Georgia, and came to understand the intense taboo of talking about it. When I had the opportunity to polish the translation, I realized that this would be an important occasion for a wider public to hear, and read, some open discussion on the topic. I look forward to hearing and reading more of Zviad Kavaratskhelia's works.”

As do we. Happy International Translation Day, everyone: get out and read a book!