The 2021 Sejong Writing Competition is now open.

Submission deadline: April 30, 2021 (11.59pm CDT)

Essay category

Focusing on introducing students and young adults to Korean culture and history through literature, our essay category utilizes folk tales and contemporary literature to explore Korean culture, past and present. All required readings are available from our website.

Adult division (age 30 and younger): Contestants are to read Yi Sang's short story "The Wings" and write an essay in response to the provided prompt.

Senior division (grade 12 and younger): Contestants are to read both Choi Inho's short story "The Poplar Tree" and Yi Munyol's "The Old Hatter", and write an essay in response to the provided prompt.

Junior division (grade 8 and younger): Contestants are to write an essay in response to one of two provided prompts regarding a Korean folktale of the contestant's choice. Contestants must choose one of the stories listed on our junior competition page.

Sijo category

Our sijo category is divided into the adult sijo division, open to everyone age 19 and older, and the pre-college sijo division, open to students age 18 and younger.

Created in collaboration with the Korea Institute at Harvard University, the goal of our sijo category is to introduce students to a lesser-known style of poetry, the traditional Korean sijo. Read about how to write sijo, or see last year's winning entries.


Annual Wisconsin Sijo Competition

The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Sejong Cultural Society are delighted to announce the introduction of a new annual sijo competition open to poets of all ages. This competition is only open to residents of Wisconsin.

Winners of the 2021 competition may be found here.

About the Sejong Writing Competition

Mission: The goals of the Sejong Writing Competition are to discover children and young adults talented in writing and to encourage them to learn and write about Korean and its culture. Through this writing competition we hope to increase the awareness and understanding of Korea’s cultural heritage amongst the younger generations growing up in the United States.

Eligibility: This competition is open to all residents of the US and Canada regardless of ethnic background.

Sponsors: The Sejong Writing Competition is supported in part by grants from the LTI Korea, the Daesan Foundation, the Doosan Yonkang Foundation, and the Academy of Korean Studies.