At 40, she left academia for fiction and children’s books, publishing eight books in two years

Woo Shin-young had spent 10 years as a professor of Korean language education at Incheon National University when she made an unusual decision: around the age of 40, she left a secure academic career and began again as a debut writer.

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I want to write books that give readers the experience of being changed, so that I am different before and after reading them.

The change quickly drew attention. Her children’s story “The Always-Kind Porridge House,” included in elementary school Korean textbooks, won the BIR Golden Goblin Award. Her social novel “City View,” which closely examines the hypocrisy of the middle class, later won the Honbul Literary Award. In the two years since her literary debut, she has published eight books while moving between adult fiction, children’s literature and young adult novels.

Woo says anger drives her adult fiction. When she cannot overcome her anger through the logic of reality, she confronts it through an imagined world. Writing children’s books feels different, she says, like recovering a lost childhood. As a child, she struggled socially and found children’s literature both a friend and a refuge. She now wants to write gentle stories for children who feel unable to fit into the world.

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When I write novels, I usually write because I am angry.

Her path to children’s literature also grew from illness. While writing her doctoral dissertation late in pregnancy, she pushed herself to prove that her achievements were not accidental and eventually became seriously ill. At the time, she could eat little beyond porridge. She realized that what sustained her was not the impressive achievements she had pursued, but the simple warmth of family members urging her to take “just one more spoonful.”

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I want to write warm stories that comfort children who, like me as a child, have difficulty fitting into the world.

“The Always-Kind Porridge House,” published in 2024, follows efforts to save an old porridge restaurant from disappearing. Its first two volumes have sold a combined 100,000 copies. Woo says she is preparing a third volume, along with another children’s book and an adult novel. Her goal, she says, is to write even one book that leaves the world feeling different after it has been read.

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A book that makes you curious about the world and other people.