This world is full of stories and I have always enjoyed telling mine. I started writing so that I could grab  and memorize the moments. I liked to express emotion through my five senses with candid, pure words. I wrote over and over again till I could produce appropriate words from my heart, which were able to directly help people have the same feeling I experienced.  Fortunately, I won lots of prizes in writing contests. Once I received the prizes from my high school principal in front of all the students in my school, I felt like I was in heaven. I realized doing what I like and getting recognized for my work brought me a lot of happiness.

I believe that I got a gift and interest in writing from my parents. My father majored in Journalism, and my mother studied Korean literature in colleges. They first met each other at “Writing Friends,” a city-wide meeting for high school’s writing club in Busan, my hometown. Sometimes, my father won the first prize, and my mother won second place in national writing contests. They still have strong affection for literature.

My mother was fairly fond of reading my diaries. She might have wondered what her son did during the day or what kind of thoughts he had. Eventually, she assembled my diaries and made a book which we called “Toosiri’s diary.” Toosiri means chubby in Korean. When I was young, I had fat on my cheeks, and my mother called me by that name. Looking at my mother smiling while she read my diaries, I desired to write better and better. I tried record my feelings for longer and in more detail. Thanks to my parents, my diary that I started writing due to my school assignment helped me become passionate about my writing.