Sandra Fraser Gwyn 1935 - 2000

Award-Winning Journalist and Author

Sandra Gwyn was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland to parents Claude Fraser and Ruth Harley. Her mother remarried after her father’s death and they moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. While living there she attended Sacred Heart Convent and graduated from Dalhousie University in 1955.

After graduating, she moved to London, England, and worked at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. When she returned to Ottawa, she met and married Richard Gwyn in 1958. They were married for 42 years and supported each other both emotionally and professionally. In their Carlton Street home (at Sackville) in Cabbagetown, they entertained writers, artists, politicians, gardeners, and bankers No doubt, times to remember and cherish.

Throughout the 1970’s, she was the Ottawa editor for the magazine Saturday Night. She published two books focused on Canadian social history. The Private Capital, published in 1984, won the Governor General Award. Her Tapestry of War was also well received.

In 2000, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson who presented the award to Sandra in her home on her 65th birthday. It was a touching ceremony as, at the time, Sandra was ill and her days were counted.

After her death in 2000 and in her memory, husband Richard Gwyn launched the Winterset Award that celebrates and supports excellence in Newfoundland & Labrador writing. Winterset is the name of her childhood home on Winter Avenue in St. John’s.

In celebration of Sandra’s passion for literacy, the Winterset Award and the annual three-day Winterset in Summer Literary Festival were created to celebrate the relationship between writer, reader, and literature.

Sandra described the 1970’s renaissance of culture and arts as Flowers on a Rock, homage to her native province. Until her death in 2000, she spent her summers in Eastport. Her goal was always to connect Newfoundland to the rest of Canada. As a journalist, she wrote of the scholars, painters, writers, comedians, and of the province’s historical and cultural uniqueness.

In the words of journalist Robert Fulford, “Study the ways of Sandra Gwyn, her ambition, her techniques, her passions, her style. Right there you can find the heart of serious journalism, in all its splendor.”