Matthew Galbraith

Matthew Galbraith (b. February 7, 1949) grew up in McDonald, Pennsylvania, a small town west of Pittsburgh. He began writing poems in his late teens and occasionally printed small volumes, which he distributed among family and friends. In 2000, he began a ten-year hiatus from writing to engage in an obsessive study of the life and poetry of Dylan Thomas. Other influences include the poems of William Blake, Emily Dickinson, E. E. Cummings, and Leonard Cohen.

Matthew briefly attended West Virginia University (1967–69) and majored in English literature before dropping out to immerse himself in the cultural revolution of the Vietnam War era. Traveling extensively throughout North America, he took on a variety of jobs in disparate places, working as a yacht club laborer in Rhode Island; a Goodwill clerk in Cambridge; an orange picker in Florida; a pea picker in Delaware; a bicycle messenger in San Francisco; and an orderly, dairy worker, and carpenter in West Virginia.

In 1974, he married Nancy Riddle, a graduate student in music composition at WVU. The couple moved to Pittsburgh, where they raised their two daughters, Amy Moontide and Sarah Rose. Nancy Galbraith is now a successful composer and Professor of Composition at Carnegie Mellon University.

After marrying, Galbraith earned a living as a structural draftsman and designer. For the past three decades, he has worked as his wife’s manager, web designer, recording producer, promoter, archivist, and most devoted fan.

Galbraith has been an active member of the Lutheran church in Pittsburgh for nearly 50 years, having served on councils and committies, and as a Sunday school teacher, tenor in the choir, guitarist, and web designer. He equally honors all faiths and other points of view.