Garland Roark

Garland Roark was an American writer (July 26, 1904 – February 9, 1985) known best for his nautical/adventure fiction. His first novel Wake of the Red Witch, published 1946, was a Literary Guild selection and adapted later by Republic Pictures company as a movie featuring John Wayne.

Life

In his own words:

"I was born in Groesbeck, Texas. My father died when I was four and my mother began to teach school. Before I was five I had learned to read and write and discovered a talent for drawing which developed over the years until my ambition was to first become a cartoonist, then an illustrator. I delivered the Dallas Journal every morning, taking as pay watercolor lessons, and during the great hurricane of 1915 when I was ten, I was considered quite a hero for having delivered the paper, even though flying tin roofs sailed about me. My education was cut short after a year of college when I went to work to help support my mother and young sister. I was a soda-fountain boy, a sign painter, a door-to-door magazine salesman; I worked in the oil fields and aboard cargo vessels plying the Mexican Gulf and Caribbean Sea, where I met many odd but wonderful characters who appear in my works of sea fiction.

"Later I got a job as a window display artist and fulfilled my desire for education by studying nights. I became an avid reader of every subject and increased my powers of observation of people and life.