Yeongcheon City Benchmarks Festivals and Nurtures Literary Talent, Advancing as a City of Culture and the Arts

Bohyeonsan Starlight Festival Committee Seeks Success Strategies in Busan
Imgo Seowon Poetry Class Produces New Award Winners and Debuting Writers

Yeongcheon City is simultaneously working toward the successful hosting of its flagship festival this fall and achieving remarkable results in nurturing local literary talent, further enhancing its status as a city of culture and the arts.

On June 12, the Yeongcheon Bohyeonsan Starlight Festival Committee (Chairperson Kim Sunok, hereinafter referred to as the Committee) visited the site of the Eobang Festival held at Gwangalli Beach in Busan to benchmark outstanding operational practices.

Members of the Yeongcheon Bohyeonsan Starlight Festival Committee and city officials are touring the Busan Eobang Festival Grounds and taking a commemorative photo. Provided by Yeongcheon City

This site visit was organized to explore development directions for the upcoming 23rd Yeongcheon Bohyeonsan Starlight Festival, scheduled for October.

The committee members, along with Yeongcheon City's cultural tourism interpreters and officials from the festival-related departments, closely inspected all aspects of the festival venue.

The visiting group focused on evaluating the layout of the event site, resident participation programs, food service operations, and safety management systems.

In particular, they showed great interest in the resident participation content of the Eobang Festival, which effectively leverages the communal culture of Joseon Dynasty naval forces and fishermen to engage visitors.

The Committee plans to analyze the best practices gathered through this benchmarking visit and actively apply them to strengthen the content of this year’s Starlight Festival, expand resident participation, and improve convenience facilities.

Chairperson Kim Sunok stated, "We once again recognized the importance of content that highlights local characteristics and encourages resident participation," and added, "We will do our best to create a highly polished Starlight Festival."

The 23rd Yeongcheon Bohyeonsan Starlight Festival will be held from October 9 to 11 in the Bohyeonsan area under the theme of "Astronomy and the Universe."

Amid the busy festival preparations, Yeongcheon’s humanities education sector is also celebrating a series of successful debuts by local writers.

Yeongcheon City announced that the 'Poetry Creative Writing Class' operated by Imgo Seowon Chung Hyo Culture Training Center has established itself as a cradle for nurturing local literary talent, producing consecutive winners of new literary awards and newly debuted authors.

The Poetry Creative Writing Class is run under the guidance of poet Sohn Junho, who won the Andong Literary Award last year for his poetry collection "Red Tico, Tarzan Underwear."

Students of the Creative Writing Class at Imgo Seowon Confucian Culture Training Center are taking a commemorative photo to celebrate the literary award winners and debut authors. Provided by Yeongcheon City

Recently, student Kim Minkyoung won the grand prize as "Sunjang" at the national-scale Lee Jo-nyeon Literary Contest, while student Jeong Haeng made his debut by receiving the New Literary Award in the quarterly literary magazine "Syphon."

The streak of debuts continued in the first half of this year as well.

Bae Nokhee ("Grandmother is Crying") and Kim Gyoeun ("The Child in the Drawer") each won the New Writer Award in "Daegu Literature," while Lee Suhyeon was honored with the New Literary Award in "Syphon" for "Quadratic Equation."

This course is highly popular, attracting not only residents from Yeongcheon but also from nearby areas such as Daegu and Gyeongju, and currently has 28 students passionately engaged in creative writing.

Poet Sohn Junho commented, "I will continue to do my best to guide students so that they can experience the joy of creative writing and achieve their dreams of entering the literary world."

A representative of the training center also stated, "The Poetry Creative Writing Class goes beyond being a simple hobby activity; it plays a vital role in discovering local talent. Through annual year-end presentations and other events, we will contribute to the revitalization of local culture and arts based on Chung Hyo culture and humanities."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.