I loved Galley Street because it was where Granny lived. It sounded like the name of a street where a pirate might live…once he’d given up life on the sea. 

A little strip of blacktop, Galley Street dead-ended at an overgrown hillside. A foot path led down to my great-grandfather’s vegetable garden which clung to the river bank. The Appalachian mountains hemmed us in on all sides. On the far side of the river, trains chugged across clackety tracks. Train whistles were our background music.

Over the years, it occurred to me that a galley was not only a ship’s kitchen but also a writer’s proof, the messy, vulnerable part of the writing…the part that has extra wide margins so others can criticize or make recommendations or comments. 

As a child, when the margins of my life were wide, I spent hours on Galley Street;  and although I carry with me years of recommendations and comments, I have no red-penned words of criticism from that place. In fact, everything I did on Galley Street seemed just right. It was a place where I gained confidence, where I felt like I could be whatever I wanted to be, and I wanted to be a writer.

Even today, my best stories come from Galley Street. 

Enjoy your time here, where swashbuckling writers (and retired pirates) are always welcome.