Sharon Bakar was born in Leicester, in the UK, and began her teaching career in inner-city schools in Birmingham, where she was also a part-time youth and community worker, working with disadvantaged children. She did Voluntary Service Overseas working in a government girl's boarding school in a remote part of Plateau State in Nigeria, and moved to Malaysia in 1984. Here she worked in government schools and in teacher-training, and also spent three years as Coordinator for Business Communication for The British Council.
Sharon is now based in Kuala Lumpur and works as a freelance writer and teacher-trainer and runs a training company -Word Works Sdn Bhd.
Her work has appeared in a number of Malaysian publications including The Star, Off the Edge, Kosmo, Mens’ Review, Quill, Kakiseni.com and Chrome magazine. She is also the editor of an anthology of short fiction, Collateral Damage, published by Silverfish Books and was one of the judges for the MPH Short Story Competition 2009. She organizes Readings, a monthly event for local writers, at Seksan Gallery in Bangsar. Readings from Readings: New Malaysian Writing which she co-edited with Bernice Chauly is a collection of short pieces from readers who read at the event.
She has taught her creative writing courses in partnership with the British Council, MPH Bookstores, and also for the International Medical University and IKIM. She now teaches it in partnership with Learning Works.
She can be contacted at sharonbakar@yahoo.com
