[KS] Event to circulate: 6/12 Friday, Seoul, Fulbright Building

[Esther Kim]

Hello Korean Studies,
My name is Esther, and I'm a current Fulbright scholar living in Seoul.
Below I share information for a reading with fellow artists held next
Friday evening that's open to the public. We'd appreciate circulation on
the list.
Thank you!
Esther



Please join Fulbright Korea Arts Scholars Esther Kim, Julayne Lee and Tom
Pyun for an evening of multi-genre literary art and reflection. They will
be sharing new essays, fiction and poems developed during their Fulbright
research grants in Korea.

When: Friday, June 12, 2026

Location: Fulbright Building, Seoul

https://maps.app.goo.gl/fEZnjoA3WD35q6vd7?g_st=ic


Esther Kim is a writer, journalist, and critic. Her Fulbright grant
(sponsored by Yonsei’s Institute of Korean Studies) funded her research for
a book on why and what Koreans forage.  After taking her degree in English
(Wellesley College, 2012) and a masters in modernist literature (University
of Edinburgh, 2013), she worked at Columbia University Press, promoting new
scholarship. She earned a masters in Korean Studies (SOAS, University of
London, 2019) while continuing work in the book business. She contributes a
monthly column to the Korea Times and criticism to American and British
papers. This year, she self-published her first art book, HOMELANDS 고향땅,
with painter Martyna Alexander, a translation of her grandfather’s story of
his childhood in northern Korea (near Sinuiju) and journey to the south
alone as a boy after liberation and before the outbreak of the war. She
lives in Taiwan with her husband. namulstudios at gmail.com

Julayne Lee is an artistic researcher, poet and Fulbright alumnus (2024 -
2025). Her project “Adopted Koreans as Space Makers” is a poetic
documentation of the history of Korean adoptees in Korea. Julayne’s debut
collection of poems Not My White Savior was on Bitch Media's Bitchreads: 15
Books Feminists Should Read in March and Entropy's Best of 2018. It has
been taught globally in Freshman Lit, Asian/Pacific Islander American Women
and US and Asia: Empire and Racial Liberalism. Julayne has presented at
universities and conferences in the U.S. & Korea. She has written for The
Washington Post, ILDA South Korean Feminist Journal, Cultural Daily &
elsewhere. @julayneelle

Tom Pyun is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. He is a 2025-26
Fulbright alumnus. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch
University-Los Angeles, studied at Vassar College, and Columbia University.
He has received writing fellowships from Tin House, VONA, and the Vermont
Studio Center. His essays and short stories have appeared in The Rumpus and
Joyland. His debut novel, Something Close to Nothing, was reviewed by the Los
Angeles Times, which called it “very, very funny” and noted that it
explores “the darkly hilarious side of our never-satisfied American
dreams.” He is currently adapting the novel into a feature screenplay.
Before becoming a writer, Tom worked as a strategy consultant at the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation’s Polio Eradication Initiative and in the
healthcare division of Los Angeles County Jail, the largest jail system in
the world. After working in infectious disease and mass incarceration, he
figures that if he can find humor in those environments, he can probably
find it anywhere. @thp100



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