Bio

I was born in Istanbul, Turkey--to an American mother and a Turkish father--but spent most of my childhood in Havertown, PA, just outside of Philadelphia. My BA is from Princeton University and my MFA from Arizona State University. You can find my stories and essays in a variety of journals, including Creative Nonfiction, Witness, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, The Iowa Review, and Brevity.

In 2019, Norton will publish my short story collection The Trojan War Museum. Two of the included stories were chosen for the O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes. A lot of my work has been written at residencies, including Studios of Key West, Willapa Bay AIR, Hedgebrook, Brush Creek, the Betsy Hotel, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. I teach in the MFA program at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, and am a contributing editor for the journal Copper Nickel.

Kind words for the The Trojan War Museum:

“What a beautiful, wildly imagined book. The Trojan War Museum gives us stories with branching paths, and they resemble fairy tales, historical accounts, news reports, and dreams. This is fiction of great originality and great delight.” —Joan Silber

“Ayse Papatya Bucak shares with Jhumpa Lahiri the gift of fusing distinctive subject matter with an unusually restrained and elegant voice. This marvelous debut collection is truly rare in its range and depth, its deft mastery of history and myth, and its fearless story-telling.” —Andrea Barrett