Muge Direr

Muge Direr is a Turkish-born author and poet and a graduate of English Language and Literature from Istanbul University. She worked as an English language lecturer at Istanbul Technical University for 21 years. During the first half of her academic career, she self-published several novels in Turkish in the early 2000s.

While still lecturing, she completed a degree at the Vocational School of Justice at Istanbul University to deepen her storytelling, which often explores thrillers and suspense centered on criminal characters.

During her 20s and 30s, she traveled widely, from the Middle East to Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, journeys that broadened her perspective and enriched her writing.

In 2021, after the trauma of losing one of her disabled dogs, she began writing in English to challenge herself and dispel the dark clouds in her mind. Since then, she has produced a trilogy in English and translated her earlier Turkish novels. She has also translated her former poems and composed new ones.

Throughout her life, she has endured abuse, the cruelty of “bad guys,” and health challenges, including scoliosis, which she overcame through major surgery at a young age, as well as the pain of a fractured family. These experiences have shaped her voice, fueling both her poetry and prose. Her works always strive to tell the untold stories she has carried silently throughout her life.

She draws inspiration from John Milton and, most importantly, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, among many others, believing that poetry should tell a story rather than merely puzzle readers with hidden meanings.

Thanks to an early retirement law in her country, which allows women who have worked more than 7,200 days to retire regardless of age, she retired at 45. Now she devotes herself fully to writing.

Dogs have always been at the heart of her life; for more than 20 years, her home has never sheltered fewer than 10 at a time. Today, at 46, when she is not writing, she cares for 18 rescued dogs on her own, accepting no help, while raising her 7-year-old daughter.

She strives to make her voice heard with pride as both a poet and an author and thanks Poetry Lighthouse wholeheartedly for bringing her work to a global audience.