Sharon Blackie (b. 1961 –) is an award-winning and internationally bestselling author, and a psychologist who also has an academic background in mythology and folklore. She has a degree in Psychology, a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from the University of London (researching anxiety and panic), MAs in both Creative Writing and in Celtic Studies, along with many other academic and professional trainings in psychology, psychotherapeutic practice, myth and folklore. In her academic years she was awarded research fellowships from the Wellcome Trust at l’Hôpital Pitié-Salpétrière in Paris, and from the Mental Health Foundation at the Institute of Neurology, National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London. She has been a British Psychological Society-approved Chartered Psychologist (research route) and was formerly in private practice as a psychotherapist with a focus on narrative psychology and the creative imagination.

Sharon’s current work is focused on reimagining women’s stories, and on the relevance of myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, cultural and environmental problems we face today. Her nonfiction books, which have been translated into several languages, are the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted: A Journey to Authenticity and Belonging, The Enchanted Life: Reclaiming the Magic and Wisdom of the Natural World, Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life, and Wise Women: Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond. Her 2008 novel, The Long Delirious Burning Blue, was recently reissued, and Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is a collection of reimagined fairy tales. Her writing has appeared in several international media outlets, and she has featured in several programs by the BBC and US public radio.  Her publication ‘The Art of Enchantment’ is in the top ten global literature Substacks.

Sharon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has taught and lectured at many academic institutions, Jungian organisations, retreat centres and cultural festivals around the world. She is online faculty for Pacifica Graduate Institute, California, where she teaches a Graduate Certificate Course on ‘Finding Ourselves in Fairy Tales: a Narrative Psychological Approach’ and other programs. Sharon’s TEDx talk on the mythic imagination can be viewed here.

Her current research interests include:

• The Fairy-tale Heroine’s Journey: the ways in which fairy tales illuminate a woman’s journey through life
• Ecofeminist imagery and ideas in European myth and folklore
• Archetypal analysis of women at midlife and beyond in European myth and folklore
• The post-Heroic Journey as an antidote to the cultural myth of the Hero

Sharon lives in the Westmorland Dales of Cumbria with her husband, dogs, cat, sheep and hens. https://sharonblackie.net