Damon Galeassi is a man with a story to tell. A Pennsylvania native, he now resides in an eco-friendly neighborhood in Schuyler known as The Quarries. He is a novelist and short story writer who gains inspiration from a lifetime of fascinating experiences.

Literature has always been near the forefront of Galeassi’s life. 

“I think in the fourth grade, I read a book a day. I ran out of Hardy Boys. I actually did have to read Nancy Drew, but you wouldn’t tell anybody about that if you were a boy,” he said.

From second through eighth grade, Galeassi attended St. Anne’s Parish School, a Catholic school outside Philadelphia. He went on to attend Penn State, where he majored in engineering and minored in English. It was around this time that he first began writing.

His job as a quality control inspector at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station motivated him to write “A Sixties Book: Spiderwort,” a story about the construction of the power plant. After his time at Three Mile Island, he moved to south Florida where he resided for more than two decades.

Galeassi’s life in the Sunshine State was like a dream. He would write until around 10 a.m., and then take care of any roofing jobs he had. After that, he’d head down to the beach for a few hours, finally ending up at the neighborhood bar. Life was good and it became the inspiration for “Twelve Tales of Trepidation. “But then a hurricane came through.

In 1993, Galeassi packed up and moved north to Virginia. 

“I spent 25 years in south Florida and it became way too crowded,” he said. He made his home in Staunton for awhile before settling down in Schuyler.

He looks up to writers such as Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Kennedy and John Kennedy Toole. He also has a fondness for Russian culture, especially its authors. 

“I always read the Russian novels. There’s one passage in Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot”— it’s like four pages in—it just makes you cry your eyes out. It’s unbelievable,” Galeassi said.

Galeassi has made several trips to Russia, the birthplace of his wife Nadia. One trip to Siberia led him to write a story where he became stranded in the Siberian wilderness without money or a wallet, and wearing only a pink jacket.

While visiting in-laws, he had to grow accustomed to the local food and the amount of alcohol typically consumed in a Russian home. 

He said, “They don’t have much food over there. Everywhere you go ... they come up with the same thing, like potatoes and pierogi. I have these brothers-in-law that would sit down and drink a bottle of vodka every time we had dinner. I got used to it. It doesn’t even bother me anymore.”

One brother-in-law is a former smuggler who sneaked shipments of Benzene across the Russia-Kazakhstan border. He would drive through isolated areas at night with the headlights turned off. When he encountered border patrols or guerrillas, he would jump out of the truck and run before they could shoot him.
In addition to being a roofing contractor and a writer, Galeassi also does infrared photography.  The cover of his most recent book, “God’s Only Daughter,” features an infrared photo of his wife.

“She actually had a gown on, but the infrared doesn’t show the gown. She was standing in the forest behind our house,” he explained.

For Galeassi, the hardest thing about being a writer is attempting to market his books.

He said, “Everybody tells you you’re supposed to blog. Some of these bloggers are blogging about blogging. They don’t actually come up with any topics other than blogging itself. It’s insane.”

He has had some success by making his books available on Amazon Kindle. One reviewer said “God’s Only Daughter” was nearly impossible to put down. 
“It’s about as good a compliment as you can get,” Galeassi said.

Though he heard that electronic sales should be his main focus, he has started approaching local bookstores, as well. New Dominion Bookshop on the Downtown Mall and Crozet’s Over the Moon Bookstore will soon be carrying his latest work.

Life as a writer can be frustrating and disheartening at times, but Galeassi is determined to keep pushing forward. He expects “God’s Only Daughter” to be his greatest success to-date and is already planning on writing a sequel.