Gary has written almost 200 books.  Many of them are set in the outdoors where the characters face adversity.  In a way, this describes his own life.  He was born in 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  His parents were drunks, and Gary had to take care of himself, sometimes staying outside for days.  Once, when he walked into a library to get warm, the librarian gave him a library card.  “It was as though I had been dying of thirst and the librarian had handed me a five-gallon bucket of water.  I drank and drank,” he says.

When asked why he writes, Gary replies, “I want my…years on this ball of earth to mean something.  Writing furnishes me a way for that to happen.”