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 in 1979, and continued to publish short stories and journalism.
Sandbars was originally planned as the first volume in a linked quartet of novels, of which the first sequel was to be titled Silent Eyes, but the later books were never published.