Intervals: Appalachia to Istanbul

by Judy Light Ayyildiz, Karen P. Ayyildiz (Editor), Paul B. Osborne (Editor)

Intervals, Appalachia to Istanbul, is author/educator, Judy Light Ayyildiz’s eleventh book and fourth collection of poetry. The poems present an overview and reflection of the poet’s experiences with life begun in the foothills of Appalachia, a branching forth into other places—especially Istanbul and Anatolia—and then a returning at intervals to the Virginias. Singly, many of the poems have been published in various places over many years. As a whole, the collection is a ring in which a life has been experienced while the poet has been audience to self in the ring.

Intended audience for the book: Adult and Young Adult General Poetry Readers, High School, University, Poetry Book Clubs, Studies that include a focus on Appalachia and Turkey, Focus on Sociology, Psychological focus on death, separation, change, adaptation, and English studies on how music and sound influence theme, emotion, and place.

86 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Judy Light Ayyildiz, a graduate of the Hollins University Creative Writing Program, has taught creative writing to all education levels. As a graduate of the Marshall University Teachers College with a major in voice, she spent many years in classrooms and on stage as performer, director, and conductor. She has been an instructor and presenter at literary workshops, international conferences on poetry, writing, and women’s studies. Internationally published and translated, she was an editor of Artemis, Artists and Writers from the Blue Ridge for 13 years, a Blue Ridge Writers Conference founder, President of the Medical Auxiliary and founder/director of the acclaimed RAMA Chorus. Author of 11 books in 5 genres include Forty Thorns a novel (translated into Turkish), poetry Mud River, and memoir Nothing but Time, A Triumph over Trauma.New York Quarterly, Mickle Street Review, the new renaissance, Sow’s Ear, Pig Iron Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, Black Water Review, Northeast Journal, Kalliope, The McGuffin, the Nazim Hikmet Festival Chapbook. Judy was featured in professional biographies in Women in Dialogue, an international anthology, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and in Kirklareli’ni Gecmisten Gelecege Tasiyanlar (Outstanding Persons Who Have Come and Gone in Kirklareli,Turkey) by historian Nazif Karacam, and story translated into Italian in the anthology, International Women Writing Today, Rubbettino Editore, 2007. Honors include YWCA Women of Achievement in Education, Virginia Commission of the Arts grants, various poetry short story prizes, Daughters of Ataturk award, Turkish Forum award, College Bookstores Best Book nominee, Gusto Poet Discovery Winner, VCCA Fellow, and JPX International Literary Novel 1st Place. A volume of poetry Intervals, Appalachia to Istanbul is forthcoming spring 2015. Judy has been married for over 50 years to a surgeon. She and her husband, Vedii, have three talented and creative children and two extraordinary grandchildren. Judy is currently completing a memoir titled, The West Virginia Diet.