Oonah McFee, née Browne was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 novelist and short story writer, who won the Books in Canada First Novel Award

Books in Canada First Novel Award

The Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a literary award given annually to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976....

 for her 1977 novel Sandbars.

Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick

Newcastle, New Brunswick

Newcastle is a Canadian urban neighbourhood in the city of Miramichi, New Brunswick.Prior to municipal amalgamation in 1995, it was an incorporated town and the shire town of Northumberland County....

 and raised in the Ottawa Valley

Ottawa Valley

The Ottawa Valley is the valley along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec along the Ottawa River. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield...

 area, she worked for CBC Radio

CBC Radio One

CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...

's Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 station CBO

CBO-FM

CBO-FM is a Canadian radio station. It is the CBC Radio One station in Ottawa, airing at 91.5 FM, and serves much of Eastern Ontario through a network of relay transmitters.-History:...

 in the 1930s, and married her colleague Allan McFee

Allan McFee

Allan McFee was an often irreverent announcer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio and television networks. Born in Belleville, Ontario, he joined the CBC in 1937, and remained with the network until his retirement in 1989....

 in 1941. They later moved to Toronto, where Allan was an announcer for the CBC's national network, while Oonah began to study creative writing in the 1960s, publishing her first short story in Texas Quarterly in 1971.

Following her award win for Sandbars, she was writer in residence at Trent University

Trent University

Trent University is a liberal arts and science-oriented institution located along the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.The enabling legislation is the Trent University Act, 1962-63. The University was founded through the efforts of a citizens' committee interested in creating a...

in 1979, and continued to publish short stories and journalism. She planned a sequel to Sandbars, to be titled Silent Eyes, but the book was never published.