Award-winning author and publisher Judy Galbraith, M.A., has a master’s degree in guidance and counseling of the gifted. A former classroom teacher, she has worked with and taught gifted children and teens, their parents, and their teachers for many years.

In 1983 she started Free Spirit Publishing, which specializes in Self-Help for Kids® and Self-Help for Teens® books and other learning resources.


Judy is the author or coauthor of several books, including the perennially popular The Gifted Teen Survival Guide, The Survival Guide for Gifted Kids, When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers, and You Know Your Child Is Gifted When . . .

She has appeared on Oprah and has been featured in Family Circle and Family Life, as well as numerous other magazines, newspapers, and broadcast and online media.


Judy served for ten years on the Board of Directors of Search Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to advancing the well-being of children and adolescents. From 2007–2010, she was a member of Minnesota 4-H Foundation Board of Trustees. In 1996, Judy received the E. Paul Torrance Creativity Award; in 2004, she was named the Midwest Publisher of the Year; in 2006, she was Honored for Excellence in Independent Publishing by Independent Publisher Book Awards; in 2011, she received the California Association for the Gifted (CAG) Ruth A. Martinson Award for significant contribution to gifted education; in 2012, she was given the Friend of the Gifted Award by the Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented for her sustained advocacy on behalf of gifted children; and in 2015, she received the NAGC Annemarie Roeper Global Awareness Award.


A popular speaker on the social and emotional needs of gifted students, Judy is available to conduct professional development workshops and to give conference keynotes. She is also available for classroom visits via Skype.

Judy lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.