Q & A with Ayse Papatya Bucak

Ayse Papatya Bucak’s stories have been called: “fearless,” “elegant,” “kinetic” and “wildly imagined.” What you’ll find for sure in her story collection, THE TROJAN WAR MUSEUM, is that the stories will take you to unexpected places.

We had a chance to ask Bucak, who is a former Artist-in-Residence at The Studios of Key West, a few questions before her reading and book signing on Dec. 10.

Q: Please tell us a little about your time as a Studios Artist-in-Residence.

A: My residency at the Studios was in May 2016. I also attended the Literary Seminar in 2017. I loved my time in Key West–I got plenty of writing done but I also went to dance and music performances at the Studios, I heard Edmund White read at Books & Books, I went to a performance of The Cripple of Inishmaan. I visited Fort Jefferson. I walked all around town whenever I needed to clear my head. I drank so much Cuban coffee.

The amount of nature and art that I was able to take in during that month was so restorative.  I always tell my students they need to do things to feed their artistic well, and my well was well fed in Key West.

Writing-wise, I worked on drafting “Mysteries of the Mountain South” (ironically set in Appalachia) and I researched “The Dead” which is set in Key West.  “The Dead” is about the sponge merchant Edward Arapian–who I first heard tell of in Joy Williams’s guide to Key West–where she refers to the brick house of a Turkish sponger but doesn’t give his name. So I literally walked over to the brick house, looked up the street number, and then looked through an old Key West phone book until I found the name…at which point I realized he was not just Turkish but Armenian which led me down a long research path culminating in a story about sponge-diving and genocide. Not quite where I expected to go. But I never would have written that story if it hadn’t been for my residency.

Q: What, if anything, is the overarching theme or project of THE TROJAN WAR MUSEUM?

A: My plan was to write stories that were both Turkish and American because I am both Turkish and American.  But I think most people read the collection as a series of stories that are both historical and fairy-tale-ish.

Q: If you can boil it down, what’s the top piece of advice you’d give aspiring writers?

A: Tortoise beats hare. But you have to remember the tortoise never stops.

Q: What are you reading and recommending?

Some of my favorites from this year are Good Talk by Mira Jacob, Lost Children Archives by Valeria Luiselli, and I Will Never See This World Again by Ahmet Altan.  All-time favorites: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.  I’m really looking forward to picking up a copy of Grand Union by Zadie Smith when I’m in the store.  I recently heard Ross Gay read at the Miami Book Fair and I was reminded of how completely delightful his essay collection The Book of Delights is.  And my friend and colleague Andrew Furman has a great book of Florida nature essays called Bitten. Oh, and favorite recent poetry collection: The Boy in the Labyrinth by Oliver de la Paz.

Q: What are you working on now, if you don’t mind saying?

A: I keep saying I’m writing a novel (which I am) but lately I have fallen into writing two new short stories, one about a creature known as the Anatolian monster, which in my story is found hiding at Topkapi Palace, and one about a (fictional) American writer imprisoned for her writing, as well as some essays about the two branches of my family (one side Turkish, one side very-waspy American).