First of all, thank you to all the readers who commented here and on the Facebook post on my October blog post. So glad you were all able to meet Cathy Horn and appreciate her work.

November is here and I am introducing you to another great poet and author, Cynthia Sharp. She is an exceptional poet and author as well as outstanding human being. I have known Cynthia for almost ten years. We met through our love of reading and listening to poetry on World Poetry Open Mic and formed a friendship and bond through only Messenger, Zoom, and phone calls. We have never met but she is a good friend. 

Let's learn more about her before the interview:

                                BIO:
Cynthia Sharp is a well-known and respected poet, author, educator and speaker. She holds an MFA in creative writing and an Honours BA in literature. With twenty years experience teaching and tutoring language arts, creative writing and English as a second language, Cynthia’s positive energy and compassionate approach to learner-centered education make her sensory writing, photo journaling, chapbook and editing workshops a huge hit. She is sought out regularly as a workshop leader, panelist, host and author presenter for organizations and festivals such as Word Vancouver, the Delta Literary Arts Society, Art & Words on the Sunshine Coast, the Canadian Authors Association, the Federation of British Columbia Writers, the Burnaby Writers Association, PEN America, Girl Guide groups and college and high school classes, as well as to guest lecture in North American colleges and universities. She regularly coaches grade 12 writing students from Fraser Academy as part of their work placement component to graduate.

Cynthia loves to organize and host events, helping communities, individuals and partners in the literary world connect. As the Greater Vancouver Regional Rep for the Federation of BC Writers, she organized a highly successful 2018 Books Alive publishing fair in conjunction with the Vancouver Public Library, which Jamie Broadhurst of Raincoast Books, one of the panelists, called “impeccably organized.” As a regional rep, she also facilitated quarterly local Meet ’n’ Greets, book launches, readings and joint events with other art communities such as Artists Helping Artists (AHA) in Burnaby. In 2017 she organized and hosted a satellite version of the Denver Poesic Fest poetry and music gathering, broadcast live from the Tipper Restaurant in Vancouver, featuring performers from around British Columbia.

Cynthia is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets, as well as The Writers’ Union of Canada and was the City of Richmond, British Columbia’s 2019 Writer in Residence where she taught poetry, flash fiction and screenwriting. She is the WIN Vancouver Poet Laureate and regularly judges contests, such as the 2020 Pandora’s Collective Poetry International Contest, the 2024 North Shore Writers’ Contest and the 2025 Bharat Award for Literature. Her poetry, creative nonfiction and reviews have been published and broadcast internationally in journals such as CV2, Prism, The Pitkin Review, Friday’s Poems, Haiku Journal, Lantern Magazine and untethered, nominated for the Pushcart prize and used in classrooms throughout the world. Her resource book How to Write Poetry, with over 60 five-star reviews on Amazon, was named Best Poetry Ebook by Book Authority, a list featured on CNN and is being re-released in October, 2025. Keep an eye out for it! 

INTERVIEW: