Despite the restrictions that the pandemic imposed on our city, we managed to continue working. 1. ‘You Will Remain’ Anthology was disseminated at the 3rd UNESCO Creative Cities Summit in Beijing as part of “UNESCO’s latest publication ‘UNESCO Creative Cities’ Response to COVID-19’2. Establishing a great network with our sister cities through in-person visits(Nottingham and Angouleme) and Meet The City initiative where we met with some of the 39 cities in the literature cluster via Zoom. 3. Collecting city-wide literary data from our authors and institutions to help them participate in international residencies and workshops. 4. Field visit to major cultural and literary institutions in the city: Zheen Archive, Kurdistan Heritage Institute, Galawej Festival, Serdem, Kurdology, Writers Union, Slemani Public Library, Jamal Irfan, Ghazalnus bookstore. 5. Announcing international literary residencies and workshops from Iceland, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Poland, Korea and the UK. Providing logistics and support for applications as well. 6. Helping Slemani authors participate and nominate their creative products in literary awards and ceremonies. 7. Participating in network-wide initiatives with sister cities such as Quebec, Montevideo, Nottingham, Dublin, Heidelberg and Nanjing.8. Participating in the UNESCO Cities of Literature Virtual Conference in Prague with an 8-minute video introducing our city and our projects over the next 4 years. 9. Applying for the International Fund for Creative Diversity by UNESCO. The results will be announced in November.10. Participating in UNESCO’s World Poetry Day in Portugal with a translated poem by Abdulla Pashew. 11. Participating in Lviv’s virtual conference on literary translation via Zoom. 12. Taking part in Slemani International Multilingual Museum famously known as the British Hospital: so far 20 sister cities have sent poems in their original language and English to be exhibited once opened for the public. 13. Participating in the secretariat’s COVID-19 panel on the state of arts and culture during the lockdown. 14. Participating in the secretariat’s COVID-19 panel on the state of post-pandemic cities. 15. Participating in Ulyanovsk’s Literary tram event. 16. Participating in Angouleme’s International Comic Festival. 17. Designing Logo, Launching Social media, and website. 18. Participating in citiesoflit.com website. 19. Participating in Utrech’s stories competition In November we will be participating in Slemani’s International Bookfair from the 18th to 27th. During the event, we will be disseminating brochures and provide in-person info sessions.
