Gary Alan McBride is a writer, educator, and the founder of Literary Forensics — a systematic approach to reading that helps writers and readers uncover the craft hidden beneath the surface of published fiction.
He spent more than six years leading Writers Who Read, a monthly novel study group for writers in Boulder, Colorado, before realizing there was no guide to help readers do what his group was already doing: read like a writer. That void led directly to his first nonfiction book.
Literary Forensics: How Reading Can Make You a Better Writer (In Res Media, 2026) draws on tools from literary theory, discourse analysis, social psychology, close and distant reading, and the digital humanities to give readers a practical framework for understanding how authors make the choices they make — and what those choices can teach us about craft.
Gary hosts the Writers Who Read podcast, which analyzes contemporary novels through the lens of Literary Forensics. He also continues to lead the Writers Who Read LIVE! study group, which meets monthly in Boulder, Colorado, under the sponsorship of the Boulder Writers Alliance (https://bwa.org).
A fourth-generation Denverite, Gary lives just outside Boulder with his wife Deb and their cat Wallace. He has worked and traveled across more than 70 countries, and has spent over a decade living in Europe and Southeast Asia.
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