Island Voices, Shelter Island 1655-2010

In June of 2005, I started working at the Shelter Island Reporter as an editorial assistant. In March of 2006, our then-editor, Peter Boody, assigned me the Island Profile series, to appear weekly year-round. When our now-editor, Cara Loriz, was appointed in January of 2007, I was promoted to Feature Writer, the position I've held since. In 2007, I encountered the Shelter Island Historical Society's vault and was enthralled. So many voices! All so silent and yet so deeply dramatic and moving. "Voices From the Vault," a performance piece which I then wrote and directed, with the invaluable help of my son, Zach Galligan, opened at Havens House in December of 2007. "Voices III" is planned for the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, 2010. It was inevitable that many of the "voices" in "Voices" would find their way to the Reporter, as indeed they have. The two streams have come together in this book, "Island Voices." But it was not my idea. Ed Brown (that's Councilman Edward Brown) stopped me one morning last fall. He liked a piece I'd written the week before. "Carol, everyone loves that old stuff. And the profiles, too. You have to get all that stuff together and put it in a book, make it a benefit for something." When I pointed out that I didn't own anything that appeared under my byline, he was dismissive. "There's got to be a way around that." There was.