Hark the Herald Anglos Sing...

El Greco, "Annunciation" (1575)

A Herald Angel?

(Image from Wikipedia)

"I'll tell thee everything I can; There's little to relate."

Actually, there's a little to relate. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I've got "nine lives, baby," so I've survived my recent, curious postings and have something to relate, little though it may yet be . . .

On November 22, I received an email from a certain Matthew Lamers, who writes for the Korea Herald newspaper, and he said:

Good'day. I am with the Korea Herald newspaper. I was going through your website. I am the editor of the expat section, which we are planning to expand in the near future. Would you be interested in writing a column for the expat section of the newspaper? If you agree in principal, we can more forward from here as there are a lot of details to go over.

The Korea Herald being the principal English-language newspaper in Korea, I was, in principle, ready to say yes, but I wanted to come clean with the man first, so I replied:

Thanks for the surprising email. I would be interested, but I'd need to see the details . . . . I should let you know up front that I'm no expert on Korea. Despite my nearly 10 years here, I've not learned the language (due partly to my busy schedule but more probably to my inability). Many, many younger bloggers have excellent Korean skills these days and know far more about Korea than I.

My wife is Korean, as I've mentioned on my blog, and our two children are more Korean than American (despite my best efforts), so I do encounter Korean culture and thinking daily, but not to the extent that other expats do.

Just to let you know since I assume that you'll need to weed out the . . . well, the weeds.

Mr. Lamers wrote back quickly with details and reassurances:

Mr. Hodges, thanks for the fast reply.

The number of articles, or columns, would more or less depend on how many you think you would have time to write. Length is also your call -- around 600 words is good. The new Expat section will begin in January. I say column because this would give you much more leeway in terms of writing style. For example, you could use first-person, but not too much, and you wouldn't have to follow the inverse-pyramid structure that straight-up "articles" are limited to. Basically be yourself -- without using too many "I's" . . . .

I like your writing and I'm looking for something informative, witty but still professional sounding -- so that, actually, is the challenge. Regarding your topics of coverage, most of my columnists cover one specific area dealing with expats -- ex. "Matt Lamers on pop-culture." But for yourself, I wouldn't necessarily ask you to write about the expat community (as I do with my other writers), but I'd ask you to write something interesting, witty, that the expat community would be interested in reading. So it's not much of a problem that you're not an expert on Korea or that you don't speak Korean (I don't either, and I'm married too).

Maybe a William Safire-like column on language?

More on the project: I am trying to assemble the best writers in Korea. It is an exciting project because this is the first time foreigners have been given the chance to have their own section in a daily newspaper in Korea. There is a lot of potential simply because there isn't anything now in Korea's newspapers that is dedicated to the foreign community on a daily basis . . . .

Well there you have it. Please let me know if we have something here you might be interested in pursuing.

Well, that sounded very interesting, and also challenging, especially the part about me getting to be myself in 600 words. Can I really be myself in 600 words per week?

I guess that we'll all find out, for I'll either succeed or fail in full public view.

I wasn't planning to announce this news, but Mr. Lamers wrote to me (and others) yesterday to inform us that the "Cat's out of the bag" on this new section to the Korea Herald:

I had been asking writers not to mention Expat Life on their websites, but now seems like as good a time as ever to let the cat out of the bag. We will not officially announce the new section until a couple days before its first installment, but feel free to tell anyone you know, or talk about it on your websites from today.

Given leave to do so, I'm talking about it on my website . . . obviously.

Now, I'm not sure that I have many expat-in-Korea folks reading my Gypsy Scholar blog, but any of you who may be that sort of reader might also be interested in checking out the Korea Herald's particularly 'anglophone' Expat Life section sometime in January. As for the exact date, I haven't yet been informed, but I imagine that the editors will want to inaugurate that new section with the new year, so I'm expecting an early start.

I'll keep everyone posted on this...