Cecilia Galante was born in June of 1971. Raised in a religious commune until the age of fifteen, she subsequently settled with her family in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where she attended high school, and graduated from King’s College. A high school English teacher for several years, she went on to complete her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, Vermont, and is currently teaching fiction at Wilkes University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program.
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The Patron Saint of Butterflies
People often ask me which one, out of all of my books, is my favorite. It’s a difficult answer (sort of like asking which of your children you favor the most) and I always demur, but the truth is that The Patron Saint of Butterflies is closest to my heart. Not only was it inspired by my own childhood, but writing it helped me to finally recover from the long and arduous path that childhood led me down. They say writing has the power to heal, and this one - at least for me - proved it.
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Hershey Herself
This novel was written in fits and starts over a period of many years. It was inspired by a brief stay at a battered women’s shelter in Long Island, New York, where I lived for three months with my newborn daughter. It was a rough haul, but the women I met at that shelter changed my life, haunting me for years afterward with their heartbreaking courage. It was their voices that demanded to be heard, chronicled and recorded on paper so that I would not forget what it was I had endured, and what I would never again endure in the future.
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Willowood
This book’s protagonist, Lily Sinclair, is loosely based on my oldest daughter, Sarah. Also a fan of decaffeinated coffee and peanut butter, she put up with my incessant need to keep moving into larger, cleaner apartments, and as result, wound up attending several different schools. Lily’s difficulty merging into her new school mirrored my own daughter’s difficulties, and while Sarah managed to do quite well for herself, I realized that it had been a much more painful time for her than she had ever let on. This book was my attempt at trying to reconcile that, and to ask her forgiveness.
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The Sweetness of Salt
I often think that if done right, the setting of a novel can be its own character, replete with nuances and personality that jump off the page as well as any human. That was my hope when I set this book in Poultney, Vermont which over the years, has become a second home to me. My husband’s mother lives there, as does one of my dearest friends, and for the past twelve years my family has spent every summer in Poultney, eating at Perry’s Diner, and swimming at Lake Saint Catherine. Putting the main protagonists, Julia and Sophie, into this bucolic little town not only helped bring them to life for me, but (I hope) introduced another character to the story.
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The Summer of May
It’s rare that someone outside of my immediate family inspires a book, but this one was definitely kick-started by a student I had while teaching English at Meyers High School. While I took fictional liberties with May’s personal story, I had this girl’s face and eyes in my head the whole time I wrote. Her image accompanied me every day, and demanded that I tell the truth. I find it strange that out of all my books, this one took the least time, but maybe it was because I already had this girl’s voice next to me, whispering in my ear.
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Little Wings #1: Willa Bean's Cloud Dreams
The Little Wings series actually bloomed after several disastrous attempts of mine to write a young adult novel about angels. I have always taken solace in the fact that someone or something is watching out for us. Children, especially. The idea for Willa Bean came after a long discussion with my agent, who suggested I try the idea for a younger reading group. I did - and it worked! The series is now planned for six books, to be released over the next two years.
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Little Wings #2: Be Brave, Willa Bean!
The Little Wings series actually bloomed after several disastrous attempts of mine to write a young adult novel about angels. I have always taken solace in the fact that someone or something is watching out for us. Children, especially. The idea for Willa Bean came after a long discussion with my agent, who suggested I try the idea for a younger reading group. I did - and it worked! The series is now planned for six books, to be released over the next two years.
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Little Wings #3: Star-Bubble Trouble
The Little Wings series actually bloomed after several disastrous attempts of mine to write a young adult novel about angels. I have always taken solace in the fact that someone or something is watching out for us. Children, especially. The idea for Willa Bean came after a long discussion with my agent, who suggested I try the idea for a younger reading group. I did - and it worked! The series is now planned for six books, to be released over the next two years.
Do not tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. - Anton Chekhov
Cecilia Galante: Most Noticeable Trait
Cecilia Galante on writer's block
Cecilia Galante Discusses Her New Book Willowood
All of my middle-grade novels - Hershey Herself, Willowood, and The Summer of May, have been published by Simon & Schuster, a leading competitor in the publishing world. In 2009, the house decided to publicize their authors a bit more through a brand new video series, which would give fans a more intimate view of some of their favorite authors. A few weeks later, my editor called and asked if I would be willing to participate. I took a deep breath. Cameras have always made me nervous. And the idea of talking to a video camera - while it was rolling - gave me hives. But my editor assuaged my fears, assuring me that she would stand in the back of the room while I talked, so that I could focus on her, instead of the little black eye staring at me in the middle of the room. “It’ll be like we’re in your living room,” she said. “No biggie.”
It was a little bit of a biggie. For me, anyway. I did not speak as eloquently as I wanted to, and there were a lot of ‘ummms’ as well as big blocks of silence when the words I wanted to say escaped me completely. (What is it about a brain that thinks in phrases and scenes for the most part, but draws a blank when a simple question is posed?) Still, for the most part, it was fun. And talking about Willowood, which at the time, was just about to be released, and other writing topics, was easier than I thought it would be. That’s not to say I’ll be running out to volunteer for another set of video interviews. But maybe, just maybe, by listening to the clips here, you can get a better idea of who I am and how I write - even though neither of them is perfect.
Or maybe that’s the whole point.
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Cecilia Galante Represented by Jessica Regel at the Jean V.Naggar Literary Agency, Inc.
