By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Denise Derya Brandt is a bit excited these days, because she is on the threshold of her second career.
Her first book, Istanbul Dreaming, will be released on September 29, and there will be a special launch party on October 2 at 6:30 at the Roebling Book Store in Newport.
Brandt was born in Arizona and acquired degrees from Arizona State in political science and business, and London School of Economics in development management because she planned on having an international career. That was a given for her due to her multi-cultural background.
“That was something I wanted to do,” Brandt explained. “I have worked in international development for twenty years and led women’s health projects in Afghanistan, Liberia, and Myanmar. I do speak Turkish. I always say I can fool the tourists, but not the taxi drivers! They know I am rusty.”
Brandt met her husband, Andrew, in Arizona, and his roots are in Fort Thomas, so they moved to this area in January of 2020, and most of the world shut down in March of 2020 due to COVID. She found herself with time on her hands.
“I decided to take an online memoir course at NKU,” she said. “I hadn’t written creatively since college, because in my job I only would have to write technical progress reports and project reports, which I hated.”
In 2021 she decided to go and visit family in Turkey. She was at her mom’s sister’s house and she found an old album of pictures, and she came across one of her mother in a wedding dress standing next to a man who was not her dad.
“My mom had this terrified look on her face,” Brandt said. “I knew she had been forced into an arranged marriage, and that she had run away. But this picture brought it all back. I asked my aunt about it but she had been young when it happened so she didn’t know much about it. She did agree that my mom ran away, but she said she ran away very soon after the marriage, like the next day. She went to a city about three hours away to escape. And that was the seed for me to start writing fiction. I wanted to tell my mother’s story, and I wanted to use fiction to explore what happened to my mother.”
Both of her parents are dead now, and she thought this story, inspired by them, would be a tribute to them, as well as leaving a legacy for her, because, since she has no kids, this story would be in the world beyond her parents and beyond her.
She started writing, but quickly realized that the story based on remembered incidents and tales was rather flat, and not what she wanted. Brandt is in a few local groups of writers, and they told her, “Denise, you are writing fiction, you can make up whatever you want,” and she realized they were right. So she signed up for an online publisher company, called Book Incubator, and they promised to get her from start to finish on her novel.
“It changed my life,” she sais. “I learned so much about the craft of writing, and I can say unequivocally that I would not have finished my first drafts without some sort of structure like that, and the support I received.”
She knew that a lot of writers would institute a schedule of discipline where they would sit at a desk for a specific time each day but that was not how she worked.
“I’m a binge writer,” she said and laughed. “I like to have a little more flexibility in my schedule. So I set a weekly word count for myself, and I was able to finish a first draft, writing it all by hand, in four months. But I have to say, it was terrible! They didn’t say that — I said that. It was something, though, and I could work with it.”
Brandt took several years to rewrite and revise the story, and her mentors and the members and teachers encouraged her, giving her help at different times. She said a lot of what she wrote stayed there, but it did change, because although the beginning part stayed pretty much the same, it did get shortened, and the ending changed drastically.
And so her second life career was launched.
“I know I went to college for things that would help my first career, but I was always drawn to journalism and writing,” she said, and laughed. “I love midlife transitions!”
The story centers around 17-year-old Ayten who is a seamstress in a designer boutique in 1950’s Istanbul, an ancient but vibrant city. She grieves for her family, but left her home in Bursa for Istanbul. Ayten had tried to honor her father’s traditional customs, but the custom of an arranged marriage began with brutality, and she ran away, although she still fears she will be found and forced back.
Then she meets Earl, a gentle American airman, and thus begins a love story where Ayten has to choose between her family and her own self respect.
Brandt’s story of a young girl’s search for independence during a turbulent time will be a perfect fall read for people or book clubs.
“I am proud of my book,” she said. “You know, there are so many different ways to write a story. At some point, you have to settle on one. And I’m sure as my skill improves, and my craft improves, reading things I’ve written before might be cringy to me, I don’t know. But right now I can say I’m proud of what I have written. I’m proud of the story, and early readers are enjoying it, so that makes me happy.”
Since this book is showing every sign of success, Brandt plans to continue following in this line of work.
“The advice I get is to always have another project in the pipeline,” she said. “Unfortunately I have not been able to have another long form project in the pipeline, because something I’ve discovered about myself is that I am a finisher. So I need to kind of see this through publication.”
That has been her focus, although she has been writing essays and other short-form writing. She also has some ideas for other books, but she hasn’t decided if they will take the form of fiction or a memoir.
“I love animals, and I have an idea that centers around a dog,” she explained. “That could be a palate cleanser project, but I also have other ideas that are similar to Istanbul Dreaming. Something maybe about people and experiences, and I have a fair amount of experiences. It’s just a matter of picking one direction.”
Brandt said having a writing community really helps keep creative juices flowing, because they encourage each other. She said she did use AI, but not for the writing part. She said she was writing about things that happened in the 1950’s in Turkey, and she asked AI to help her to identify sources.
“But of course I had to follow up because AI lies, and you have to verify a lot,” she commented. “In terms of research, online communities who posted nostalgic photos were helpful so that I was able to get a feeling for the time. Veterans who posted pictures, and shared recollections were helpful because my dad was stationed on an Air Force base in Istanbul when he met my mom. Also, I subscribe to the New York Times, and they have an archival thing called the Times Machine, and you can go in and use a keyword search for a range of dates, and I was able to find articles that had been written about Turkey at the time, which was helpful. I also was able to see ads for clothing and furniture which helped me have a sense of what people were wearing and the prices and things. That was a very valuable research tool.”
Brandt found a publisher, She Writes Press, and through them she was able to interview publicists, and found one that she works very well for her. She said Caitlin Hamilton Summie is amazing and wonderful member of her team.
The book launch, on October 2 is an after hours event, and is an invitation only event. Information for the event can be accessed through the Campbell County Library. As soon as the book comes out, however, Brandt said she is available to speak at events, and she can sign her books. The audio version should be out by September 29, the same as the book.
“People can ask their library to stock the book,” Brandt said. “This book would be great for book clubs, too. I would love to meet and talk to readers. If they can’t make it to my book launch event, there are other opportunities because I am local.”