About Galley Notes

Hi! My name is Sam. Welcome to Galley Notes. This Substack and the associated blog is dedicated to book reviews, literary criticism, wide-ranging essays, and basically any other topic that meets my (admittedly idiosyncratic) taste.

What is a Galley?

When a book is being published, one of the last forms it takes before publication is known as a galley proof (or galley for short). This was historically an uncut, unbound version of the book seeking final edits. These edits are informally referred to as galley notes (I assume, otherwise consider this the origin of the term).

I take a more expansive view of the word “galley.” When any piece of writing is published, be it by Random House or in a comment on Substack, it is contributing to a larger conversation. It (explicitly through quotes or implicitly through ideas/concepts) references writing that came before. This serves as the base knowledge that future writing will draw upon.

In that sense, every piece of writing is “incomplete.” It is just one part of our literary tradition. Galley Notes takes this literally; each piece I write will treat one or more pieces of writing as a “galley,” upon which I can expand ideas, offer criticism, or otherwise contribute to the conversation.

What You Can Expect

Posts based on works of all forms. It'll really depend on the week, but book reviews, a look into an academic paper, and commentary on the broader Substack community are a few things you can expect to see. Feel free to shoot me an email or a comment if there are any “galleys” you'd like to see; I can't guarantee they'll make a post, but I'll definitely take a look!

Let’s all contribute to the conversation together!