Sharon Berg 🇨🇦 🇸🇪

Becoming Resident Interviewer It's been a journey of sorts

This is my latest post in Substack. Home truly is where your story begins and I began as a Canadian author and now I am a Resident Interviewer for a Canadian periodical.
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Hinging a sweet little device to shift tone

Hinging
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A screenshot of Sharon Berg's substack posts.

I invite you to check out my substack, which is free. sharonbergauthor.substack.com

Jasper is copper-coloured with chocolate-coloured eyes and wears a black colour with two reflective stripes on it. He has his head cocked toward the photographer.

In this photo, Jasper is rising up on his hind legs to run toward the photographer.

Meet Jasper, my 18 week old, copper-coated, Cockapoo. When I lost my last dog, I thought I'd never take another, but I'd wake in tears I was that lonely. This boy is calm yet so comic, the perfect companion AND he gets me out walking to keep me healthy. (Photos by Erica Penney of his 1st grooming.)

Big Pond Rumours Press • chapbook publishers producing quality books • all are designed with stunning visual appeal • creating a fresh line-up of Canadian authors for 2026 Guidelines: Send 20-24 pages of poetry or up to 2,500 words of prose. Every poem should start on a separate page. Manuscripts are your work (no AI please) and unpublished as a whole. Individual poems published in journals should be accredited. Send an email with a cover letter providing name, address, & phone #. Please attach bio note or CV recording important publications. OPEN for submissions: October 1st, 2025. DEADLINE: December 31st, 2025 (NL time!) sharonberg.author@gmail.com

Big Pond Rumours is back as a chapbook press for Canadians only
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Photo of Sharon Berg seated with papers in her lap.

Have to say I'm proud to share this poem at Suburban Witchcraft in Siberia! Check it out!
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Photo of Sharon Berg in 1978 with her 2 1/2 year old daughter, Ila. They are both chewing on a long stem of grass.

Here's something to contemplate...
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Photo of Sharon Berg from the 1980s.

Here is a recording of 4 poems read aloud that I performed in the 1980s. This was at an Art Gallery in Ottawa.

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Photos of Sharon Berg and two of her book covers.

I've got lots of books for sale. $20 each includes postage. Message me.
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Photo of 21 year old woman holding her new baby in her arms as she stands shaded beneath the down-sweeping branches of a pine tree on a bright sunny day.

Reminicse...
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This... is about a book project and personal transformation that took up about 35 years of my 37 year friendship with Elder Pauline Shirt, who passed in 2024.
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A link to my interview of a Canadian author as the Resident Interviewer for The tEmz Review. Enjoy!
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For artists only: I serve a niche group of creatives. You might be a writer, a photographer, a painter or some other creative person with a project you need to complete with few distractions outside of the gorgeous landscape. All meals are included in the price.

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Here's a direct link to another of my latest interviews at the Resident Interviewer at The tEmz Review.

I am the Resident Interviewer at The tEmz Review. Here's one of my latest interviews.
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And then there is this... Who ever thought their poetry, or even a children's book, would receive a reading at a Cat Festival?
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For my academic thesis on the history of a school, I struggled with this issue. Bottom of the page, end of a chapter, or end of the book? It may be a publishing question as the 1st 2 take more room/pages. For a biography, trust if they're interested in the story they'll turn to the end of the book.

May is Short Story Month! Photo of cover for 'Naming the Shadows / Stories' by Sharon Berg These tales by Sharon Berg are touched with humour and outrage, mystery and shadow. She offers stories of loss and learning. Conflict and memory run through generations, innocence gives way to experience, and all must learn to redefine themselves and the way they see the world. Curious preteens receive an unexpected education at a mall-side carnival show. A lonely dairy farmer develops a special bond with his neighbours’ children, then suffers unexpected consequences. An ageing author manages to get one up on her adversarial interviewer, while another woman’s unsettling way of remembering past lovers confirms her emotional freedom. If you enjoy stories with many facets and carefully considered details, you’ll love Naming the Shadows (Porcupine’s Quill, 2019). Available from the press, from author Sharon Berg (contact with Messager), through your local bookstore, or online at Amazon or Indigo. Or ask your local library to order the book.

This is short story month.

THE SHAPE-SHIFTER | Adelaide Literary Magazine ALM No.74, March 2025

I want to offer thanks to Stevan V. Nikolic for publishing my rather strange story, 'The Shape Shifter', in "Adelaide Literary Magazine".

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Power Q & A with Sharon Berg — River Street Writing May is National Short Story Month and we’re kicking it off with a brief and salient interview with award-winning multi-genre writer Sharon Berg, author of many books, including the short fiction colle...

I'm ever-so-touched that I was asked this question by Hollay Ghadery of River Street Writing. Ask a blunt question & you'll get a blunt answer from me.
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Photo showing the table & hands of various people jotting notes around a table - representing a workshop experience.

When you're poor, old enough to think of your end, but still writing, with umpteen manuscripts finished but not getting published fast enough... you think 'how can I speed this up?' I'm hiring help despite being stubborn about doing things on my own for decades. Oh, how I miss my workshop days!

Photo of Tidbit, a piebald b/w Shipoo dog, laying on a red corduroy couch beside two books by Sharon Berg. One is Naming the Shadows (short fiction, Porcupine's Quill, 2019) and the other is Stars in the Junkyard (poetry, Cyberwit, 2020).

Tidbit is my greatest writing support. He really likes Naming the Shadows (short fiction, Porcupines Quill, 2019) and Stars in the Junkyard (poetry, Cyberwit, 2020). I've got copies of both so you don't have to buy them from Amazon!

“Civilization, especially as traced through developments in the Middle East then Europe, positioned humanity as the central purpose of creation. This manifested as the domination of nature, accumulation of wealth, and exercise of power to compete for resources. So civilization was the repudiation of eons of Indigenous wisdom. It was a fundamental spiritual shift, one that has laid the template for the human systems that dominate the world today. The recovery of a healthy relationship with the environment and amongst one another will not be possible until the mainstream recognizes the truth about what has happened to the Indigenous world, and takes actions to reconcile with that past.” Blaire Stonechild from an interview in The tEmz Review

Are you up for the challenge? Read my interview with Dr. Blair Stonechild about his latest book in the latest tEmz Review.
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2025-03-19 2:33 pm Dear [blocked] - I've been sitting with a certain degree of shock and horror after the recent Zoom meeting held with the jurors for the category of books I read. I still cannot believe that [blocked] spoke so openly about her 'moral' indignation, which she directed at [blocked]'s book. For one thing, it is a well-researched academic book that condenses what First Nations have been saying for centuries and places emphasis on the need to establish kinder interactions with the planet we all share. However, when she continued and claimed that the book was filled with 'lies' and 'mistruths' that really shook me hard. [blocked] brought a level of judgement to that book that I believe displays her personal position in opposition to anything said by First Nations. I am speaking about censoring, a position no Juror of a book contest should ever bring to the table when discussing the books they are judging. Yes, I feel it lies in the same arena as book banning. I really feel very strongly about this. So strongly, in fact, that though I've tossed and turned over what I should do about it, I’m compelled to take this course of action. To complain about a fellow Juror is not something I'd ever seen myself doing before that Zoom meeting. I’m still shaking with horror that I feel compelled to do this. However, as I said at the time, 'I'd like to see her take that attitude into a [blocked]'. I was being sarcastic, of course, meaning exactly the opposite. I believe [blocked] should be barred from being asked to fulfill the position of 'Juror' ever again. During that Zoom meeting, she tried to dominate the conversation with a loud voice. When she didn't succeed, she immediately pulled down her image for a few minutes. Coming back on she argued for cutting the meeting short or rescheduling, claiming she had medical issues to address that were at no time evident before she lost her argument. My argument that [blocked] should be barred from acting as a J…

I never saw myself doing this... before Trump dismantled all that's humane & decent below the border. So many people are blind to the damage done when you don't 'hear' another person, burying them under your personal bias. We all need to stand up for what's good & right in every corner of our lives!

Photo shows Sharon Berg on the left, the cover for 'Widow Fantasies' by Hollay Ghadrey in the middle, and a photo of Hollay Ghadrey on the right. Beneath is the following excerpt fro Hollay's interview: "I was overwhelmed and my husband wasn’t lifting his share ... I felt I had a dependent, not a partner, and I was desperate to alleviate that burden ... I didn’t want to kill him, I just wanted him not to be draining me. I was also so disturbed by these thoughts that I talked to a therapist. When I learned of the term, widow fantasies, I was delighted. What a wonderfully oxymoronic term! I didn’t know it was going to be the title of a collection or even a story then, but it stuck with me: the way it pulls at itself. That tension between the words! It was perfect for a book that looks at how women use fantasy to subvert the often-oppressive confines of their world. ”

Check out my interview with Hollay Ghadrey here:
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Issue Thirty ​ ISSN 2818-811X

Please check out the 30th issue of The tEmz Review. I have four interviews in it this time, but there is also a lot of other good reading in it. Look out for individual highlights from the interviews in this issue in the days to come.
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photo of books taken from above: they stand in a circle, pages fanned

I'm resident Interviewer for The tEmz Review (London, ON, Canada). It's getting close to release date for the next issue. I interview Dr. Blair Stonechild, Carolyn Parsons, Hollay Ghadrey, and Marlis Wesseler about their books in the next issue. Watch here for an update after March 10, 2025.

Self Portrait of Andrew Wyeth (1940)

This is a painting that demonstrates the flexibility and nuance of colour when using egg tempera... something that I deal with in my debut novel ms. Beautiful work, it's a self portrait done in 1940 by Andrew Wyeth.

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