Featured on our cover this month is a new painting titled “Kingfishers and Company” by local artist and gallery owner René Wiley. René and her husband Ben Wiley opened René Wiley Gallery 14 years ago in the Downtown Cultural Arts District in Galveston. The gallery represents award-winning painters including René, her daughters, and several other accomplished local area artists.

This month René has a new colorful spring collection of oil paintings of local birds in tree branches featured at the gallery. The gallery, located at 2128 Postoffice, is open daily from 11am-5pm. For more details on her gallery and others, check out this month’s Galveston Gallery section.

In our feature story “Burgers, Baby!” we highlight six unique burgers and the places that serve them here on the Island. Like many other communities, burgers are on just about every menu on the Island from fine dining establishments to burger joints to food trucks.

We selected these burgers based on staff recommendations as well as those that were recommended to us by our readers and social media followers. You may notice we didn’t use the word “best” to describe them—the exercise of selecting the best burger is highly subjective. It’s also important to note that all the burgers we write about are great in their own way. When you have the opportunity go out and try one, or all six.

If your unique burger didn’t make the list this time around, feel free to reach out to me at the email listed below. We would love to hear about what makes your burger or sandwich special.

Many of our stories start as suggestions from our readers. If you have an idea for a story for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue of our magazine, please email us a short description to info@galvestonmonthly.com.

Please keep your idea brief and be sure to include the names and contact information that are important for the story. While we cannot guarantee a response, we look forward to reading your ideas and hopefully including it in a future publication.

Enjoy the Island!