Meryem Gülbudak is a woman who keeps writing her stories without losing her energy as she gets older. If you are a bit of a sluggish person, you start to question yourself beside this energy and productivity. She manages to lift you up from where you sit and pull you into the world of women with her stories.

ZEYNEP PEHLİVAN

İzmir- I met with Meryem Gülbudak, one of Izmir's productive story writers, when she published her first book. I remember the excitement of her first book and the conversation between us and its warmth. She had previously mentioned that her stories were published by some magazines and that she also wrote thoughts and essays for magazines for years. When she told me her age, I didn’t believe her. She didn’t show her age, she was active and petite. She never stopped and moved like an atom ant and I liked her. As a result of a long working life, after retiring as a literature teacher, she was finally able to publish her first storybook that was as naive and beautiful as its name: “Karadeniz Sakla Beni (the Black Sea, Hides Me)”

Meryem says that publishing her first book took a long time because she lost her husband when she was very young and she had to look after her two children. 

 Actually, Meryem doesn’t have the word of laziness in her vocabulary.

Have you ever thought about buying books for yourself?

In the process of writing her own book, she gave lessons in the workshops organized by the Women Writers’ Association and collected a lot of stories. She used those stories to write her first book (the Black Sea, Hide Me) in 2016. As happy and excited when her children were born, she had the same feelings when her first book was published. First books for writers are like the first child they have. After her book was published, she participated in many book fairs and she appeared as a guest on TV shows. She came together with her readers at the book fairs.  Mothers who wanted to buy books for their children asked her what kind of books they should buy. Meryem told them, “Have you ever thought about buying books for yourself?” Maybe those women bought books for themselves for the first time. 

In 2018, she wrote her second book entitled, “Kırkyama (Forty Patches). In this book, the main characters of her stories are usually women like her first book. She tells the stories of women living in other regions in this book. Meryem draws wonderful pictures for years and she drew the cover image of this book. 

She talked about her age. She said she entered her 65. She said, “I would like to write dozens of more books”. She is a human and women's rights advocate and she has always taken that at the forefront in her life. Particularly, the struggle and journey of women are very valuable to her. She loves nature, labor, working, and producing regardless of her age. She said she was working on her third book.  Meryem said: You should work a lot to produce; you should make a great effort to produce.