Getting Published in Korea

September 13, 2013

Sean Keenehan was traveling in South Korea last summer.  It was his fourth time there and looking into the future toward graduation, Sean was hoping to find opportunities in Journalism, either print or broadcast, in Korea. 

That possibility presented itself on an airplane returning from a small island off of the south coast of Korea called Jeju Island.  “I decided to pick up a Korean newspaper, written in English, to read on the plane back to Korea's mainland,” Sean said. 

“On the cover was a story about a man named Hank Kim, who owns hanks Book Cafe in the city of Seoul and also runs a publishing house, called Seoul Selection that publishes books and magazines written in English about Korea. The story on Mr. Kim was very inspiring and I decided I would try to reach out to Mr. Kim about the possibility of breaking into the Korean journalism market and becoming involved with Seoul Selection,” Sean said. 

Sean emailed Mr. Kim. At their meeting Mr. Kim introduced him to Yeon-kyung Ko, the publisher of a Korean government-produced magazine called KOREA Magazine. “Mr. Kim suggested that my personal experiences with the Korean culture would fit well as a contributor to KOREA Magazine.” 

When he got back to Chicago he followed up with Ms.  Ko and who wanted him to write a story for the August issue based on one of the story ideas he’d sent her. It was on Korean traditional markets. “However, she did ask that my story include two specific markets in the article, so I had to find a way to write a story that included these two markets that I had never been to. I decided to do a reflective piece and they supplied the accompanying illustration that appears with my story,” Sean said.