About

Sally is an author, historian, and speaker.  If you would like to engage her services as a speaker, please click HERE for contact information.

Most people don’t think Florida (especially South Florida) has a terribly interesting history because the state is relatively young. But let Sally be the first to dispell that rumor.  Florida is a state brimming with color, and it’s not just in the sunsets on her west coast, the art deco buildings of Miami, or the abundant wild life in the Everglades.  Florida is color.

Sally J. Ling is an author living in the South Florida area. She has written hundreds of articles for South Florida magazines and was a special correspondent for the Sun Sentinel for four years. In fact, it was an assigned article that led her to write her first book on Florida history, Small Town, Big Secrets: Inside the Boca Raton Army Air Field, the fascinating story of how what happened on this little known top secret military base won WWII.

Since then, she has looked for obscure yet fascinating topics to share with the public. And she’s found quite a few, all through researching one topic and stumbling upon another. Her other books include:

The Spear of Destiny: A Shea Baker Mystery (Volume 2)
The Cloak: A Shea Baker Mystery (Volume 1)
Out of Mind, Out of Sight: A Revealing History of the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee and Mental Health Care in Florida
A History of Boca Raton
Run the Rum In: South Florida during Prohibition and
Phillip’s Great Adventures: Spies, Root Beer and Alligators

One of her books, Run the Rum In, led to her participation in the National Geographic Channel’s documentary “Gangsters,” and to become associate producer of WLRN’s (PBS Miami) documentary  “Prohibition and the South Florida Connection,” which aired November 2011.  She also lectures at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton for their Lifelong Learning Society.

She continues to ferret out remarkable Florida stories so if you have one you think warrants a look, please let her know. You may contact her HERE.

Please visit her website sallyjling.com for more information on her books and upcoming projects.