When she was in her second year of high school, she won the Gyeongnam essay contest, which gave her the chance to go to Sookmyung Women's University for Korean Literature.
She started her literary career in 1972 when her poems “Bal” (발 Feet), and “Cheo-eum moksori” (처음 목소리 The First Voice) were recommended by Park Mog-Weol to Hyundae Munhak.
She was also a member of Munchae with poets Yoo An-Jin and Lee Hyang-Ah, publishing poems that sensually express aesthetic sensibility specific to women, acquiring a wide readership.
In the foreword of this poetry collection, Park Mog-Weol said that “rather than resistance or interested toward extravagance or morality, she reveals ‘the truth of feet that dedicate themselves/ within the silence of pain’ – omitted – that she arouses in us wide human sympathy”.
Shin Dalja creates generous and delicate middle-aged women as narrators, looking back on a life of desolation with free and humorous voice.