1320 S Dixie Hwy, Coral Gables, FL 33146, United States
Shara McCallum attended the University of Miami, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1994.
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College Park, MD 20742, United States
Shara McCallum earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry from the University of Maryland in 1996.
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4400 Vestal Pkwy E, Binghamton, NY 13902, United States
Shara McCallum obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Poetry and African American and Caribbean Literature from the Binghamton University in New York in 1999.
Career
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum, Evelyn O'Callaghan, Kei Miller and Alison Donnell
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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Shara McCallum
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2012
Shara McCallum
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2015
Venice, Italy
Shara McCallum at the Venice Literary Festival
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2015
Venice, Italy
Shara McCallum at the Venice Literary Festival
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2017
Shara McCallum
Achievements
Membership
Awards
OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
2018
Shara McCallum, winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry
4400 Vestal Pkwy E, Binghamton, NY 13902, United States
Shara McCallum obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Poetry and African American and Caribbean Literature from the Binghamton University in New York in 1999.
(The Water Between Us is a poetic examination of cultural ...)
The Water Between Us is a poetic examination of cultural fragmentation and the exile's struggle to reconcile the disparate and often conflicting influences of the homeland and the adopted country. The book also centers on other kinds of physical and emotional distances: those between mothers and daughters, those created by being of mixed racial descent and those between colonizers and the colonized.
(Song of Thieves delves into issues of racial identity and...)
Song of Thieves delves into issues of racial identity and politics, the immigrant experience and the search for home and family histories. In this follow-up to her award-winning debut collection, The Water Between Us, Shara McCallum artfully draws from the language and imagery of her Caribbean background to play a haunting and soulful tune.
(These poems probe the definition of Motherland. Shara McC...)
These poems probe the definition of Motherland. Shara McCallum homogenizes childhood memories of her native Jamaica with a revised understanding of danger and corruption, teasing out notions of history, language, motherhood, rupture, memory and identity. She weaves the new cloth of oral tradition, struggling to arrange a comfort zone within the foreign manufactures of suburbia. Hers is the skilled music of a master.
(Lyrical and well-crafted, this collection of poetry prese...)
Lyrical and well-crafted, this collection of poetry presents some of Jamaican poet Shara McCallum's best work. While touching upon various topics, including migration, identity, family relationships, motherhood, mental illness, storytelling, folklore and myth, these poems transform the most painful and sometimes mundane details of life into works of terrible and satisfying beauty.
(Haunting, alarming, transformative and elusive, these poe...)
Haunting, alarming, transformative and elusive, these poems bridge together the gaps between development stages, from the girl, to woman and then mother. With the complexities, that intertwine them, can you be all three at once? Who shapes our identity and who is in control here? How do we recognize, acknowledge and honor the changing of who we are?
Shara McCallum is a Jamaican-born American educator and award-winning author. She is a Liberal Arts Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University. Among her writings are The Water Between Us, Song of Thieves, This Strange Land, The Face of Water and Madwoman.
Background
Ethnicity:
Shara is of Afro-Jamaican, Venezuelan and Jewish descent.
Shara McCallum was born on October 18, 1972 in Kingston, Jamaica; the daughter of an Afro-Jamaican father, Alastair McCallum, and a Venezuelan mother, Migdalia Bertorelli McCallum. She moved to Miami, Florida, United States with her mother's parents, her mother and her sisters at the age of nine. Her father, who had remained in Jamaica, committed suicide soon after the rest of the family moved to the United States.
Education
Shara McCallum attended the University of Miami, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1994. Two years later, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry from the University of Maryland. There, she had the opportunity to work with poets Michael Collier, Michael Waters, Phillis Levin, Stan Plumly and Merle Collins, who each influenced her work. In 1999, she obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Poetry and African American and Caribbean Literature from the Binghamton University in New York.
Shara McCallum began her academic career as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Memphis. She also was a Faculty Member at Drew University Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program, the Stonecoast Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine and the University of West Indies in Barbados. From 2003 to 2017, she held the post of Director of the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University. While at Bucknell, she launched the Poetry Path to make contemporary poetry a part of everyday life. Presently, Shara is a Liberal Arts Professor of English at Penn State University.
As the author of poetry, Shara McCallum wrote her first book, The Water Between Us, in 1999. Her work considers the intersections of race, gender, history and personal identity. Since that time, she has written other works, including Song of Thieves, that was published in 2003, as well as The Face of Water: New and Selected Poems and This Strange Land, both came out in 2011. Her most recent book, Madwoman, was published in 2017. Shara is also an essayist and publishes reviews and essays regularly in print and online at sites, such as the Poetry Society of America.
Shara has delivered readings throughout the United States and internationally and at numerous colleges and universities.