She was born in Alpullu, Kırklareli in 1952. She graduated from Faculty of Architecture, İstanbul Technical University. She worked on some city conservation projects of the same faculty’s History of Architecture and Restoration Institute; and completed her master degree in the same area. Okyay, with her pure telling style, wrote many stories and participated in some anthologies. The most popular of those was published in 2006 and translated to German, gathering nineteen stories from Turkish authors together. In 2012, her childhood memories was published in her book named Yeşilköy: Bizim Köyden Trenler Geçer. Same year she wrote Wanderlust (Leylek Havada, 2012) for “Bridge Books” collection of Günışığı Kitaplığı and with this book, she received IBBY Turkey’s “Young Adult Novel of The Year 2012” award. Her story book, about a child who is strongly decided to follow her dreams, Dream Girl (Hayal Kız) was published in 2014 and her first children’s novel Cloud Dreamer (Bulut Delisi) met with readers in 2017. She lives in İstanbul and she has a daughter.