Matthew Galbraith (b. Feb. 7, 1949) grew up in McDonald, Pennsylvania, a small town west of Pittsburgh. He began writing poems in his late teens. In 1999, he self-published a small volume titled Humanoid, which he distributed among family and friends. In 2010, he published I Awoke in Dreamland after a ten-year hiatus from writing, during which time he engaged in an obsessive study of the life and poetry of Dylan Thomas. Other influences include the poems of William Blake, Emily Dickinson, E. E. Cummings, and Leonard Cohen.

Galbraith briefly attended West Virginia University (1967–69) and majored in English literature before dropping out to immerse himself in the cultural revolution of the Vietnam War era. Traveling extensively throughout North America, he took on a variety of jobs in disparate places, working as a yacht club laborer in Rhode Island; a Goodwill clerk in Cambridge; an orange picker in Florida; a pea picker in Delaware; a bicycle messenger in San Francisco; and an orderly, dairy worker, and carpenter in West Virginia.

In 1974 he married Nancy Riddle, a graduate student in music composition at WVU. The couple moved to Pittsburgh, next door to Nancy's parents Alfred and Alverta, where they raised their two daughters, Amy Moontide and Sarah Rose. Nancy Galbraith is now a successful composer and Professor of Composition at Carnegie Mellon University.

After marrying, Galbraith earned a living as a structural draftsman and designer. For the past two decades, he has worked as his wife’s manager, web designer, recording producer, promoter, archivist, and most devoted fan.