Kim Mi-wol was born in 1977 in
Gangneung in the
Gangwon province of
South Korea. Her father was a public servant and so she moved, along with his job, to Hongcheon for middle school. Unusually, she enjoyed, saying, "I liked moving to a new school. The excitement of encountering something new was overwhelming. The sadness of separation from things that were familiar paled in comparison." Kim became a writer, she says, because "when the book I was reading had an ending that I did not like, I would re-write the conclusion of as I see It fit. Little Women, A Dog of Flanders, Sonagi (by Hwang Soon Won) and Tess are some of the examples. Considering the examples are all tragic stories, I must have preferred a happy ending even in my younger years. She attended a secondary school for girls in
Chuncheon. She then moved to Seoul and got a degree from
Korea University in Linguistics and a degree at the University of the Arts in Seoul in creative writing. She made her literary debut in 2004 with her work "Think Your Way Through the Garden" (Jeongwone gireul mutda) published in the newspaper
Segye Ilbo. She has received the
Munhakdongne Young Writers Award three times (2010, 2012, 2013). ==Work==