Sharon McCartney

1959-

Sharon Ann McCartney, poet, instructor, and editor was born on 3 September 1959 in Mesa, Arizona. McCartney grew up in San Diego, California, where she attended La Jolla Country Day School for her middle and high school education. McCartney attended Pomona College, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1981; she then pursued a master’s degree at the University of Iowa, which she finished in 1983. McCartney later received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Victoria in 1994.  McCartney wrote five books of poetry within sixteen years while living in Fredericton. Books published in NB include Karenin Sings the Blues (2003) and For and Against (2010). McCartney’s other books of poetry include Under the Abdominal Wall (1999), The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder (2007), Hard Ass (2013), and Metanoia (2016). McCartney’s poems “Katahdin” and “Deadlift” were published in the anthology The Best Canadian Poetry in English for the years 2012 and 2013. She has also published widely in leading literary magazines such as The Malahat Review and Queen’s Quarterly.  McCartney’s The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder won the Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry in 2008. The poem “Decaf” took second place in Prairie Fire’s Bliss Carman Poetry Competition in 2005 and was a finalist in Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest in 2004. “My Brother, Alone” won Queen Street Quarterly’s annual poetry contest in 2001. She has been a poetry editor for The Fiddlehead and for local publishers.  

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton