LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
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Updated: 2026-03-18
- Posted by Imprima Korea Agecy on 2026-03-18
- Updated by Imprima Korea Agecy on 2026-03-18
Description 작품 소개
It’s been seven months since Lee Heesu moved to a new city and started her job at a heart call centre. As a phone operator, Heesu answers calls from people who need a space to vent their frustrations and sadness. Though the often-violent nature of her job weighs her down, Heesu is insistent on starting anew in Wandoshim for she is desperate to escape her previous life, one that was rigidly bound to her mother.
One day, at her local kimbap restaurant, Heesu discovers a strange ad from a company called ‘Graceful and Perfect Curves.’ The eccentric name leads her to wonder about things that are made by curves and when curiosity wins over, she phones the number. She’s greeted by a low voice who reveals that Graceful and Perfect Curves is a writer’s collective located in one of Wandoshim’s most desolate areas. Desperate for a change in pace, Heesu decides to join.
Her endeavour leads her to an inn which has been repurposed by the local youth club. She meets a cast of characters including café owner Seungho, who despite low foot traffic continues to keep his café open, the people in the local youth group who are determined to revitalise their neighbourhood, – in particular Jeon Heesu, a young woman with the same name but could not be more different from Heesu, – and Nina, the person-in-charge of the writer’s collective.
Nina explains that the collective has been engaged in writing relay stories, in which one person writes half a story and the other finishes it. Nina and Heesu are paired up, and Heesu ventures to write her first story. Heesu’s story is a revisitation of her relationship with someone whom she refers to as her lover. She reflects on their relationship and how the pair had only moved languidly, ‘according to inertia’. Heesu and her lover have always had dreams of going overseas, a desire which they satiate by watching travel programmes. They aim to visit Munich and start a savings account together, but that trip never comes to fusion. In fact, on their first domestic trip together, they only make it halfway before turning back to Seoul due to over-exhaustion.
Heesu also reflects on her relationship with her mother. She addresses her mother by her name, Dong, and describes her as someone who believes lies to be truths. Heesu struggles with her Dong’s avoidant personality, her constant need for validation as a parent, and her inability to consider Heesu’s feelings. It is these things that had motivated Heesu’s escape from her hometown. Despite Dong’s flaws, however, Heesu still loves her mother, and it is through writing that she finds a way to reconcile her ambivalent feelings.
When it is Heesu’s turn to complete the second half of Nina’s story, however, she suffers from writer’s block. In the process of writing, rewriting, and deleting, Heesu asks a myriad of questions including ‘how is it possible to miss somewhere you haven’t been?’, ‘how can one write a story that one doesn’t know?’, and ‘what exactly prompts someone to be faithful to their community?’
In the final chapters, Heesu bumps into Jeon Heesu at the kimbap restaurant. She learns that J. Heesu’s mother owns the kimbap store, a fact that parallels her previous living arrangement, in which Heesu lived in a room in her mother’s cosmetics store. J. Heesu, however, is the complete opposite of Heesu. She is positive, radiant, and although she plans on leaving Wandoshim to pursue her studies, she’s determined to return and prove that the city is not a bore. She learns that the writer’s room is set to close due to a lack of funding, yet Seungho still intends to keep his café open. Struck by J. Heesu’s cheerful personality, Seungho’s persistence, and Nina’s belief in the power of stories, Heesu not only overcomes writer’s block, but also finds the will to break out of the monotony of life motivated by the hope that she will one day travel far.
Author Bio 작가 소개
There are no expectations.