Sandra McCulloch

Historic storyteller and observer of human resilience

Sandra McCulloch is a retired journalist who spent 25 years with the Victoria Times Colonist, covering courts, politics, and the stories that shaped her community. Her work also took her to military exercises in the United States and beyond, experiences that deepened her respect for soldiers’ lives and sacrifices.

Sandra often found herself drawn to funerals as an assignment — not for the sorrow, but for the chance to meet people she wished she’d known while they were alive. That instinct — to listen, to imagine, to restore voices lost — naturally led her into historical fiction.

Sandra explores the vow Andrew made to protect his nephew Michael, while communicating love through a code: flashes of undeniable, unearned love.

While Andrew dies in the Battle of Bunker Hill, Michael continues to fight in George Washington’s army, then returns home to honors his uncle’s vow by watching over Andrew’s youngest child, Nancy McClary. Michael lives with the burden that he was never “enough” to be a McClary, yet feels his uncle’s enduring love in whispers and “codes.”

Her next book on the McClarys is The McClary Legacy, the story of Andrew’s daughter, Nancy, as she navigates her role as an expressive woman in a time that did not honor such. Nancy has her father’s notebook at her side as she journals her thoughts, all the while feeling a protective spirit hovering near and brushes with love she cannot explain. Over time, her confidence increases and she embraces her father’s fire. She leaves her imprint on history through her words.

In her memoir, *The Generational Hush*, Sandra traces the arc from childhood silence through a life of witnessing, avoidance, and self-protection — to a reckoning with her past through writing. The memoir moves from a laundry-room silence, to the beach with a dog named Jiggs, to the calm, protective influence of her ancestor, Andrew McClary. Along the way she explores stifled love and inherited patterns, the cost of staying small, and the moment when the quiet witness inside her finally said, “I feel safe.”

In the final stages of polishing is The Fir and the Forgotten Man, the historical story of the man (and his dog) behind the Douglas Fir.

Sandra is continuing her exploration of moral judgment under pressure, and is working on By Judge Alone, a literary legal thriller about a provincial court judge facing upheaval.

Sandra will be attending Bouchercon 2026 in Calgary, Alberta.

Beyond fiction, Sandra has written a personal blog, emotionaldiabetes.ca, exploring resilience and chronic illness. Her journalism is widely archived, including at newspapers.com.

Sandra lives on Vancouver Island, Canada, where she continues to write, research family history, and pursue the stories she feels fortunate enough to uncover.