Bucak, Ayse Papatya

From modern-day parking lot snipers to 18th century Romantic picturesque painters, At the Bank of Paradise: and Other Stories explores the unexpected boundaries of the Caribbean, following those who have come, those who have stayed, and those who have left the Caribbean behind. Inspired by real historical figures at the periphery of the Caribbean experience, these stories dive into untold narratives only glimpsed in the footnotes of history.

Shifters is a novel that takes place in a city in which humans and humanoid creatures called “shifters” are grown in test-tubes and taught how to live by androids and books. The city belief structure is centered on supernatural beings called Guardians. The Guardians never appear, but are symbolized by a Light above the horizon. Humans and shifters live under oppressive social structures that limit their agency. Most of the city’s inhabitants do not realize they are enslaved by arbitrary systems. The novel’s protagonists must learn to overcome these damaging constructs and journey away from the city in order to find a new life, free of fabrication and falsity.

As an undergraduate journalism student, I was taught the “little person, big picture” reportage technique – in essence, using an individual’s story to illuminate a larger issue. In this collection, in which I aim for honesty and relatability, I position myself as the “little person” in essays meant to convey one individual’s experiences and thoughts in hopes of touching another individual who’s gone through similar experiences or had similar thoughts.

Legends That Sleep Kick Bogotá at Night is a short story collection that parodies
the gender, moral, and social constructs of Colombian mythology and folklore. Set in
contemporary times, the stories depict slews of grotesque transformations and rituals
happening during plane flights, sibling tomfoolery, neck kisses, social network log-ins,
trips to the family graveyard, conversations with escorts, and waves of town gossip. The
folktale monsters aim to enlist the reader as their accomplice in their quest to fight
against the forces that seek to permanently subdue and marginalize them.

The following manuscript charts the relationship between first cousins, Sara and
Marina, from the day they are both born, only minutes apart, to the day Marina and Sara,
both seven years old, witness Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionaries’ victorious
march to the capitol, to the present day, when an ailing Sara reaches out to her estranged
cousin, asking Marina to return to the land she risked her life to leave. This
multigenerational novel also explores the destructive effects of Sara’s political activism
and gigantism on her parents, Elisa and Rolando, whose conflicted feelings towards their
daughter have as much do with unrequited love and regret as they do with her
Communist loyalties. Finally, this manuscript pushes against the conventions of the novel
by exploring variations in structure, perspective, and style.

As Samuel and Thomas take up a fight that no one else will to protect the wild lands they love, they are forced further from the quiet lives they have built. These are the two main characters in the novel A Long Way to Go. Samuel photographs the elusive and rare birds that most people never get a chance to see. As he seeks out the most elusive, possibly-extinct Northern Stilted Curlew, he struggles with the memory of his wife, who died a year earlier after a battle with cancer, and the scarred relationship with his son Ryan, a young artist. Ryan meets the mysterious Karia, and as he gets to know her, he too begins his own kind of search.

All the Place You’ve Got is a collection of short stories inspired by and set in the author’s hometown of Warner Robins; Georgia. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, occurrences, and characters are either a product of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The title is a partial quote of dialogue stated by Hazel Motes, the protagonist of Flannery O’Connor’s first novel Wise Blood. The full quote reads, “In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.” This collection of stories was built as a direct antithetical response to O’Connor’s representation of dialogic salvation and visions of the divine, a central concern, stemming from dedicated Catholic belief, of her body of work.

The Future Will Be Better Tomorrow is a satirical post-apocalyptic novel that
examines the personal and social ironies that occur in a society that is unbalanced by
an unexplained apocalyptic event. Working with a combination of dark humor and the
terrifying realities of an apocalyptic event – in this case: a blackout – the novel aims to
challenge the machinery established by this particular subset of the science fiction genre.

Inspired by the baroque prose of Melissa Pritchard, The Animalcules of Adam: &
Other Small Tales is a genre-bending short story collection that incorporates elements of
fiction, nonfiction, poetry and translation. Spanning in subject and setting, from the
primitive bear rituals of Finland to the coroner’s inquests of 19th century England, the
purpose of this thesis project is to develop a uniquely immersive voice, while ostensibly
investigating the origins of curious inventions, including the microscope, the
kaleidoscope, and the first English dictionary. This collection borrows from, and
deliberately manipulates, the texts of important historical figures, such as Walt Whitman,
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Cawdrey, in an effort to make a home in the voice
of another. It is a playful and linguistically sensitive study of the nature of invention; a
meta-fictional commentary on the anxiety (and ecstasy) of influence; and above all else, a
celebration of the written word.

Authority is a fictional collection of mixed poetry, prose, and experimental forms
of writing. The collection addresses the exchange of power between the reader and the
writer surrounding a text, while challenging the forms writing takes on the page during
this exchange. Behind this search for authority and the meta-fictional manipulation of the
writer, however, is the struggle of an author suffering with depression. An author, who is
willing to alienate and risk confusion, in order to share their experiences of
disorientation, fear, morbid humor, and constant doubt, hoping to find understanding with
a faceless reader.