Rebecca Faye Smith Galli

Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (Becky) is an author and weekly columnist who lives in Baltimore, Maryland and writes about love, loss, and healing. A Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Becky was employed by IBM, where she was the recipient of the Golden Circle award for marketing excellence. Surviving significant losses—her seventeen-year-old brother's death; her son's degenerative disease and subsequent death; her daughter's autism; her divorce; and nine days later, her paralysis from transverse myelitis, a rare spinal cord inflammation that began as the flu—that have fostered an unexpected but prolific writing career. In 2000, the Baltimore Sun published her first column about playing soccer with her son—from the wheelchair. Fifteen years later, with 400 published columns and a completed memoir, she launched "Thoughtful Thursdays—Lessons from a Resilient Heart"—a weekly column for her subscriber family that shares what's inspired her to stay positive. She also periodically contributes to the Baltimore Sun's Op-Ed page, Midlife Boulevard, Nanahood, and the Mighty.