Judy Light Ayyildiz, an award-winning poet, novelist and nonfiction author, has become the new editor of Mountain Empire Publications, a publishing outreach of Appalfolks of America Association based in Clifton Forge.
Ayyildiz’s husband, Dr. Vedii Ayyildiz, a Turkish immigrant who arrived in America with only $50 in his pocket, recently passed away after he and Judy had been married for 60 years. The couple met while Judy was a student at Marshall University in Huntington, WV where Vedii was completing a surgical residency with the C & O Railway and Hospital near MU.
Vedii had finished his residency at the C & O Hospital in Clifton Forge prior to meeting Judy in Huntington, but he was rotated to Lynchburg to complete a residency there. Judy recalled, “I would travel on a free pass on the C & O to meet Vedii halfway in Clifton Forge.”
During her Thanksgiving break, the couple got married in Huntington, and Vedii got a chief residency in surgery at Cabell-Huntington Hospital where he was working when Judy graduated from MU in May, three months pregnant.
Judy remembered, “After a year in Huntington, we took my son, Kent, and my widowed mother with us to Buffalo, NY where Vedii did an oncology residency, and his mom from Istanbul joined us there to help.”
After completing his residency in Buffalo, he took a chief residency at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, and after becoming a U.S. citizen and working for two years at the Virginia Veterans Care Center (Roanoke), he set up a private practice that lasted for 35 years.
“During his private practice, he was on-call at Carilion Trauma as a surgeon and worked as a Clinical Teaching Surgeon with the University of Virginia Affiliation,” Judy recalled.
Judy earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from MU’s Teachers’ College as a music major with a minor in English in 1962.
Vedii had been employed by Roanoke Memorial Hospital prior to his retirement. He passed away on Sept. 3, at 95, having worked for decades as M.D. (Fellow of the American College of Surgeons), oncology, laparoscopy and general surgeon.
In addition to Kent and Judy, Vedii left behind his son, Kevin Kamal Ayyildiz; his daughter, Karen Perihan Ayyildiz and her husband, Miles Wallace along with two grandchildren, Vedat Quinn Ayyildiz and Elizabeth Grace Ayyildiz.
Left alone with three grown children no longer at home and Vedii no longer there as well, Judy decided to visit friends out of state in order to collect her thoughts.
After returning from visiting friends in Long Island, she traveled to Santa Fe, NM to visit a friend who recently lost her husband. When she returns on Oct. 20, she plans to assume her role as the third editor for Mountain Empire Publications (MEP) that was founded by the late Kendrick B. Taylor of Clifton Forge.
“Appalachia to Istanbul,” Judy’s fourth book of poems, was published in June of 2015 by MEP when Heather Wood was editor. “Appalachia to Istanbul” is the third book published in MEP’s “Appalachian Poetry Series.”
Judy was a musician and vocalist prior to focusing on her career as an award-winning writer. She performed in the first musical that Appalfolks produced at the Historic Stonewall Theatre in 1992 when she was a member of the Stonewall Players, a troupe of 10 from the Alleghany Highlands and Roanoke that performed “A Musical Tribute to the Railroad.”
While living in Roanoke, Judy has performed with the Showtimers, a musical theatre troupe, and she has continued her education at Hollins University where she earned her Master of Liberal Arts degree with a focus on vocal performance and writing in 1980. Also, she completed her Master in Writing Program in 1981.
Judy’s father was a poet and singer, and she credits him for inspiring her to become a writer. She remembered, “I began writing poems in second grade, and my poems are lyrical in that I weave sound, rhythm and imagery into the lines.”
She believes that her musical background has enabled her to become a better poet, and her body of work as a poet, four collections, is impressive: “First Recital,” Leisure Pub., 1977; “Smuggled Seeds,” Gusto Press, 1979; “Mud River,” Lintel Press, 1988; and Appalachia to Istanbul, MEP, 2015.
Judy’s writing awards include First Place, Creative Fiction for “Leaving,” awarded by the Virginia Writers Club 100th Anniversary State Contest, First Place for “Forty Thorns,” a novel in the Literary Fiction Category, Los Angeles, CA; First Place, poetry; for Nazim Hikmet Festival, for “View from the Top;” First Place, poetry; Jim Wayne Miller Poetry Contest; and The Discovery Series winner for “Smuggled Seeds,” the winning prize that resulted in publication of her book.
She is a well-known personality in Roanoke where she has served as President of the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Auxiliary, director and organizer of the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Auxiliary Chorus for ten years, actor, musical director and fund-raising chair for Showtimers Theater; and Junior League of the Roanoke Valley music director of the annual festival show.
Having taught creative writing in high schools in VA to serving as the leader of numerous writing workshops in KY, WV, the country of Turkey and VA, Judy has won many other awards for her fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She was featured in “Roanoker Magazine” in 1988 as a “Person to Watch.”
Currently, she is working on a novella about coming of age in Ceredo, WV alongside her two brothers, one older and one younger. Judy observed, “For the past five years, I have willingly dedicated much of the space in time that it takes to write to being a help to Vedii.”
Vedii’s health failed him during his last years, and he had a series of hospitalizations. Judy remained as his helpmate.
Judy noted, “Vedii was 15 years older than me, but until that time (his hospitalizations) he was always young, enriching my life so much. He was my champion.”
She continued, “I learned so much about loss, pain, and holding the precious close to you, and I would not have done anything else.”
As a teacher, author, vocalist, musician and now editor of MEP, Judy concluded, “Now is a space of rediscovering myself and what I have to offer.”
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