A graduate of Dicle University’s department of Turkish language and literature, Özyaşar’s short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines and journals such as Varlık, Kitap-lık, Adam Öykü, Notos Öykü, İmge Öyküler, Kül Öykü, and Mahsus Mahal. He received the Human Rights Association Short Story Award in 2003 and an honorable mention in Varlık’s 2007 Yaşar Nabi Nayır Short Story Competition for his first short story, "Kuyu Ödevleri" (Water Well Assignments). For Ayna Çarpması (Mirror Shock), published by Doğan in 2008, he received two prestigious awards for best short story collection: the 2008 Haldun Taner Award and the 2009 Yunus Nabi Award. The same book has been published in Kurdish translation, and an English translation of his short story "Gece Silgisi’ ("Night Eraser") was published in Transcript Review in 2011. Özyaşar is currently working on a new short story collection.