Gary Marks

Gary Marks is an American novelist and singer-songwriter.

He has created more than twenty novels and novellas spanning literary realism, coming-of-age fiction, philosophical science fiction, absurdist comedy, and romance, while maintaining a distinctive voice across genres. His stories are known for unconventional characters, unusual subject matter, and unexpected endings.

Marks is also the creator of Multi-Color Poetry, a literary form in which colored words allow multiple poems to exist within a single stand-alone poem.

As a musician, Marks has maintained a five-decade career as a singer-songwriter. His first three albums became cult classics, earning multiple reissues worldwide. His socio-political compilation album Crossroads was selected for Record Store Day UK/Europe 2026. He is also the author of two Piano Method Books that teach modern styles without music notation.

Teaching and Working Life

Alongside his writing and recording, Marks continues to teach creative writing, songwriting, and piano privately to advanced students on an audition basis. The piano instruction is the same improvisation-based approach documented in his two Piano Method Books.

Literary Influences

Marks's literary influences include John Steinbeck, Ken Kesey, Ursula Le Guin, John Fowles, Michael Chabon, Rumi, Orson Scott Card, Jack Kornfield, Krishnamurti, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, and Kurt Vonnegut, as well as lyricists Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Don Henley, Bruce Springsteen, Lennon-McCartney, Stephen Sondheim, Woody Guthrie, Bono and The Edge, Jackson Browne, and Phoebe Bridgers.

Across his novels, lyrics, and poetry, Marks explores freedom, human connection, and the possibility that love may exist at levels far beyond ordinary human experience.

In 2025, Marks published a revised edition of The Dance and the Diamond Sky.

Beyond his writing and music, Marks founded the We Love Hawaii Food Project in Maui, Hawaii in 2020, for which The Maui News named him one of its 2020 "People Who Made a Difference."