Defne is a reader, writer, editor, and lecturer based in Istanbul. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow (2015) where she worked on a historical and magically real novel about fin de siècle Istanbul, Κωνσταντινούπολη. Her book won the Gillian Purvis Award for New Writing, and is currently being expanded for publication.

She is the fiction editor of Unsettling Wonder: A Journal of Folk and Fairy Tales and the co-editor of three books, Tip Tap Flat: A View of Glasgow (Freight, 2012), New Fairy Tales: Essays and Stories (Unlocking Press, 2013) and Miscellaneous: Writing Inspired by the Hunterian (The Hunterian, 2014). Her creative work has appeared in such journals as New Writing Scotland 31 and 33, Gutter, Fractured West, Spilling Ink Review and Time Out Istanbul, among others. Defne was Writer in Residence at the Hunterian Museums from 2012 to 2014, where she researched, wrote and conducted creative writing workshops about the un-exhibited artefacts of the collection.

She currently works as a part-time lecturer at Koç University, and has initiated a programme to teach creative writing to women in Istanbul who have had to flee their homes – Syrian refugees, Kurdish immigrants, residents of trans guesthouses, and women’s shelters.