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Sharon DeBartolo Carmack is a 30-year veteran Certified Genealogist® with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing, a Diploma in Irish Studies from the National University of Ireland–Galway, a Certificate from the Spiritualists’ National Union International in inspired speaking and demonstrating mediumship, and an Advanced Academic Diploma from the Spiritualists’ National Union in the U.K.
Sharon is a partner in the Salt Lake City-based research, writing, and publishing firm of Warren, Carmack & Associates. She offers consulting, mentoring, writing, and editing services for nonfiction books, with an emphasis on memoirs, biographies, histories, and family histories.
As part of the adjunct faculty at Salt Lake Community College, Sharon developed and teaches the following online courses: Tracing Immigrant Origins, Writing Life Stories, Genealogy and Family History Writing, and Preparing for Certified Genealogist I and II.
Sharon is also the author of twenty books and hundreds of articles, essays, columns, and reviews that have appeared in nearly every major genealogical journal and publication. Some of Sharon’s books include Tell It Short: A Guide to Writing Your Family History in Brief, Your Guide to Cemetery Research, and You Can Write Your Family History.
Additionally, her work has appeared in many writing and literary publications: Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Hippocampus Magazine (where her essay, “Switched at Midlife” won “Most Memorable” and was one of ten essays selected for the Best of Hippocampus), Portland Review, Steinbeck Review, Writer’s Digest, Personal Journaling, and Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art (where her essay received Honorable Mention in the annual Creative Nonfiction Contest). Sharon’s essays have also been finalists in contests for the Bellingham Review’s Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction and in Creative Nonfiction’s True Crime contest.
In 2018, Sharon received the Spiritualists’ National Union John McIndoe Prize for the highest score earned in the Diploma advanced courses, and in 2019, she received The Olive Haywood Award for Achievement in recognition of achievement over and above what is usually expected of candidates undertaking the SNU accreditation or awards. Her prize-winning thesis was “Spirit Rapping, Spiritoscope, and Psychometry: The Mediumship of Maria B. Hayden, M.D.,” which she is now expanding into a biography due out the fall of 2020.
Sharon can be reached through one of her websites: www.SharonCarmack.com, www.PathwaysUp.com, or www.NonfictionHelp.com.
