Gonca Özmen was born in Burdur, Turkey, in 1982. She studied English Language and Literature at Istanbul University, receiving an MA in 2008 and a PhD in 2016. Her first poem was published in 1997 and in 1999 she received the Ali Rıza Ertan Poetry Prize. Her first collection Kuytumda (In My Nook, 2000) won the Orhan Murat Arıburnu Poetry Prize and in 2003 she received Istanbul University’s Berna Moran Poetry Prize. Her second collection Belki Sessiz (Maybe Silent) appeared in 2008 and was published in German, translated by Monika Carbe, in 2017. A selection of her poems in English, The Sea Within (Shearsman), translated by George Messo, appeared in 2011. She is a member of the advisory board of Bursa Nilüfer International Poetry Festival and the magazine, Turkish Poetry Today. She is also a member of the Three Seas Writers’ and Translators’ Council in Rhodes, Greece.