Gail Galotta

Raised in Chicago, Gail Galotta spent her childhood summers in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where her love of water—and its quiet, mystical pull—took root. Lakes frequently appear in her work, reflecting a lifelong fascination shaped by long days at her grandparents’ cottage.

A former high school English teacher, Galotta has directed school and community theater productions and written numerous plays and essays. Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have earned multiple writing awards, including recognition from the Upper Peninsula Writers Association, which named her Emerging New Writer of the Year in 2008. She also spent nine years as a weekly columnist for the Iron Mountain Daily News and is the author of Views from My Boathouse.

Galotta lives in Vulcan, Michigan, with her husband and their dog, overlooking the same lake that inspired her earliest stories. When asked what inspires her latest work, she offers only a knowing smile.