Minumsa Revamps 'Today's Writer Award' into a Long Novel Contest System

Minumsa announced on the 23rd that it will reorganize the 'Today's Writer Award' into a full-length novel contest.

Minumsa stated that the environment surrounding novel creation is changing and that many changes are occurring within the novels themselves, and thus it will reorganize the 'Today's Writer Award' into a contest. The purpose is to actively participate in the literary field by directly publishing works that predict and lead new future phenomena and reflect and provide insight into various realities.

Minumsa's 'Today's Writer Award' was established in 1977. Since then, it has served as a cradle for works that read the spirit of the times and aim for aesthetic social communication, including Hansusan's Bucho, Lee Mun-yeol's Son of Man, Kang Seok-gyeong's Room in the Forest, Lee Man-gyo's Marriage is Madness, Jung Mi-kyung's Rose-Colored Life, as well as Jeon Seok-sun's Cheolsu User Manual, Choi Min-seok's The Capable One, and Kim Ki-chang's Monaco, playing a significant role in Korean literature.

After its establishment, the 'Today's Writer Award' was operated as a contest, but in 2015, it selected the work that best matched the sense of 'today' among works published that year and allowed readers to participate in the process. At that time, the winning works included Ku Byung-mo's Not Just Me, Jang Kang-myeong's Comment Army, Cho Nam-joo's Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, and Bae Su-a's The Snake and the Water. In 2019, Minumsa made another change to the operation method of the 'Today's Writer Award' by narrowing the scope to first books among published works, discovering new writers such as Kim Cho-yeop, Han Jeong-hyun, Baek On-yu, Seo I-je, Jung Eun-woo, and Kim Hwa-jin.

Minumsa stated that through the revival of the 'Today's Writer Award' contest, it will return to its original form of waiting for and supporting the emergence and departure of writers who encompass tradition and revolution on behalf of this era and the new world.

Minumsa announced that it will accept submissions for the reorganized 'Today's Writer Award' full-length novel contest until February 28 of next year. The manuscript should be at least 500 pages based on 200-character manuscript sheets, and submissions must be works that have not been published or awarded elsewhere. The winning works will be published as part of Minumsa's 'Today's Young Writers' series.