Having once lived in Turkey, I love writing
about eastern culture and myth. Today I live in North Carolina with my husband, two sons, and nine
koi fish. While
my last name translates to “Snow White,” I have not yet written a memoir featuring an evil
stepmother. The story behind my stories:
BURNT AMBER came out of my obsession over Kızkalesi, a Crusader castle located near our home in Turkey. I was curious, wondering who might have inspired the tragic fairy tale, and Sibel volunteered for the role. When I added an Ottoman-inspired djinn world, the story fell into place.
With MIST OF KAVALA, I first imagined a boy forced to be a soldier, something along the lines of a Jannisary. Then I outlined a way to highlight several UNESCO sites of Turkey, my son's fixation on the MMORPG Runescape, and my curiosity about quantum physics. All these things got together with my thirst for a good myth, and two characters showed up for duty: Taner and Mitra.
THE RED PALACE is part star-crossed lovers, part Cider House Rules. Set in the Prince's Islands of Istanbul, TRP is trending toward steampunk, or a sort of futuristic society with a historical throwback. I'm still collecting ideas for this story.
My blog, "Serendipity" comes from the Persian tale of The Three Princes of Serendip. The tale is representative of the way ideas seem to link together for me. Or, as Wikipedia puts it, my "propensity for making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated."