Garage Literature, also know as Garage Lit, is a modern form of book writing that has strong similarities to Garage Rock in that the authors, or Garage Authors create their work in situations less inviting and less comfortable as some of today's "pampered" novelists. These environments can include: traveling, or more specifically, being on the move and looking for a place to stay; jail; college (of course, not the faculty lounge, or the home of the resident Rhodes Scholar, but rather a dingy frat house, or a low-rent, off-campus room, where the cockroaches provide the best company that the writer has found); actual garages or basements, when the spouse or significant other is "not interested in that no good, [expletive] sitting around all day in the living room or kitchen, on the laptop in his/her pajamas, wasting time, and not earning one red cent to help out with the bills". You get the idea.

     Generally the Garage Author is working on a tight budget, or none at all. This is the reason for the difficult environments, as well as the inspiration for some of the writing created by them. Without the funds needed to leisurely plug away at the next blockbuster, and an agent from a giant publishing house waiting with baited breath for the manuscript, these "troopers of the real literary world" suffer through developing story lines and character traits, fact finding, homemade cover design, and seeking out do-it-yourself publishing deals, while maintaining day jobs, night jobs, living off somebody else's hard-earned money, like a spouse, or parent (a forgiving parent, that is - we're not talking about trust funds, here), all for the sake of getting the passion inside their heads out, and into a book to release onto the planet, like a newly hatched eagle, violently screaming to take that leap into the air. Then comes the wait for it - that moment that the discovery happens - sometimes years, or decades, or even lifetimes before the public eye beholds the words of these unpolished, makeshift prophets. And sadly, like so very many Garage Bands, sometimes it never happens at all, but that will never stop the Garage Author from persevering.

     Nothing can be said for the work of these writers. Without the formal literary training of a Harvard graduate or a spoon-fed "fortunate son", many of these toilers hone their skills through hands-on, trial-and-error, pen-in-hand combat, so it can range from pure genius to pure crap, much like that in the world of Garage Rock. But when it is good, it is well worth the time that anyone gives toward reading it, which is the ultimate goal of the author.

     Some famous Garage Authors of the past (before there was such a thing) include John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, and Henry Miller, and so many unnamed ones.

     I am proud to now include myself as one of the Garage Authors of the 21st Century, and hope to one day be on the list of those who made it, despite the hurdles and the odds.