what makes a storyteller?

I feel these impulses. And I strategically knit the above into my clients’ travel, real estate, and hospitality projects.

Vancouver Aerial

it takes more than a love of story to create story

I THINK AND MOVE WITH 18 YEARS OF MARKETING AND STORYTELLING EXPERIENCE SPECIFIC TO PLACES.

Hi. I’m Sandra.

so, why places?

Like Taylor Swift or Lykke Li, I know places.

Before I turned 10 years old, I had lived in three countries, five cities, seven homes, and a handful of hotels. Places made an impression.

After achieving a degree in commerce from the University of British Columbia, I started my professional career in residential development and then commercial real estate investment. In the latter, I supported one of Canada’s top brokers, producing marketing materials for iconic national properties that totaled billions of dollars in sales. 

On the side, I co-created a “secret” blog, Tales from a Bar Stool, about bars and the people I met there. Its success led to writing lifestyle and travel articles for Canadian, and a few American, publications. In 2012, I was named one of the National Post’s Vancouver “Worthy 30”.

I realized I was not for the corporate life. And left that career behind to shape a freelance career that blended together my marketing and creative writing experiences — brand strategist and copy consultant.

Along the way, I have written screenplays and self-published two story series on Substack. My short film script, THE ONLY ONE, was a finalist in Soho House’s Script House competition in 2018. And my feature screenplay, LUNA, was a runner-up in Age Inclusion in Media’s Silver Bullet competition in 2021 and a semi-finalist in Gender Equity in Media Society’s 2023 screenwriting competition.

Just over a decade after setting out on my own, I put a name to my branding and copywriting work: Studio Telltale.

Sandra O'Connell - photo by Kristine Cofsky