Song was born on July 5, 1960, in Sangju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Korea. He studied law at Yonsei University in Seoul, Song made his literary debut in 1986 when he had five poems published in the Munhak-sasang in 1986. In 1991 he published a poetry collection and then moved to writing "very short" stories that he conceived of as between poetry and short stories. Song continued to work at a day job for six years, until 1993, when he quit and devoted himself to writing and had his first short story "The Final 4.5 Seconds of My Life" published in the Summer Issue of Munhakdongne in 1995.