W.B. MacDonald was born in New Westminster, B.C. and grew up watching the Salmonbellies play at Queen's Park Arena in the late 1960s and '70s. He spent four years researching and writing Salmonbellies vs. The World: The Story of the Most Famous Team in Lacrosse and their Greatest Rivals. It was published by Caitlin Press in 2013.

In 2011 Caitlin published MacDonald's The Good Hope Cannery: Life and Death at a Salmon Cannery, a history of the Bell-Irving family controlled Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company. In 2019 Guernica Editions published his book of poetry The Massacre Confirmed Our Worst Suspicions. MacDonald is a board member of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame, lives in Ocean Park, B.C., and teaches creative writing when not working on books.