Born in Seoul, South Korea, Hyun-joo Park is a novelist, essayist, translator, and critic. She studied English language and literature in college in Korea and graduate-level linguistics in the US. While a graduate student, Hyun-joo began work as a translator of English literature and a literary critic focusing on mystery and romance novels.

Returning to Korea, Hyun-joo continued her work as a translator and critic. In 2018, she won the Yoo Yeong Translation Award for her rendition of Jill Alexander Essbaum's Hausfrau. She also began to write books of her own, including an essay collection, The Romance Pharmacy, and the two-volume novel My Occult Days. Romancing on Jeju is the English translation of her second novel, Searching for Honeyman. In 2023, Hyun-joo published At 2 a.m. Laundromat, a sequel to My Occult Days.

Hyun-joo hosted a podcast called The Drama from 2017 to 2018 and appears regularly on a TV critic program aired nationwide in Korea.