As a kid, I was curly-haired

(which only my dad admired) and musical (which won me the occasional award and sometimes even a photo in The Kingston Whig-Standard). I scaled my way upward through the Royal Conservatory system, continued pounding the faux-ivories at Queen’s University to get my BMus, and ultimately received a Master of Arts in Musicology at the University of Toronto.

Post-university, my transition to reality was rougher than rough. Eventually, having the desire to afford an occasional meal, I segued into advertising and marketing, ending up on the corporate side of broadcasting. In fact, I used to greenlight or turn down proposals for television series. Karma is having a lovely time now, as it tickles me with occasional publishing contracts or prizes, but punches me with frequent, brutal rejections, too.

It doesn’t matter—I love to write, more so than I ever enjoyed practicing arpeggios or selling ad spots on network television. As a teenager, I filled stacks of diaries with angst-filled entries—although I didn’t win any academic prizes for writing, because I had a bad habit of killing off my characters when they became too annoying. Now, I like to keep my protagonists alive, and I’ve been improving my craft ever since winning a local contest in 2014 for my first-ever fantasy short story. In fact, I returned to school to earn a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber in 2019. My writing group, made up of four other aspiring female authors, offers me ongoing moral support, inspiration and friendship. We meet weekly to spur each other on—and sometimes those spurs are extremely sharp, but they always boot me in the right direction!

My number one goal as an author is to entertain, and it warms my heart that you’re reading this. I’m very excited that my first novel, So Hard to Do, made its debut early in 2023. It’s a bubbly romantic-comedy with Shakespearean twists and is very different from my second and third novels (Apprentices in Magic, a fantasy for ages 9+ and Fountain of Evil, a domestic thriller for adults), both published in Fall 2023. Don’t ask me which one’s my fave—I love them all!

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about where you can find my other stories, you’ll find the info on this site. I promise I’ll keep writing down the many tales that are stuffed in my head, and I’ll make them as engaging as I possibly can.

Thanks for being a reader—my reader. It means the world to me.

Sally B