Gary Pak was born and raised in Hawaii. Pak graduated from Boston University with a BA and from University of Hawaii with an MA and a PhD. Growing up in Hawaii, Pak said his first language is Pidgin English. "My culture is from Hawaii; my parents’ and grandparents’ generations helped create that culture", he said during an interview with the Magazine of the University of Hawaii.

Some of Pak's novels are based on the true stories from his family. His grandparents fled from Korea during World War II and came to the United States; in 1905, his grandmother worked on a sugar plantation at Hawaii. His novel A Ricepaper Airplane is based on an incident related with his mum in the setting of a sugar plantation. In his short story collection Language of the Geckos and Other Stories, Pak's memorable portraits of Hawai'i's Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Native Hawaiians increases cross-cultural understanding of Hawaiian life and culture.

Pak was also the producer, play writer and editor of the Olelo Community TV series, Plantation Children: 2nd-generation Koreans in Hawai'i.

Pak was a recipient of Fulbright Fellow.

Short stories

• "Hae Soon’s Song", appeared in New Press’ anthology
• "Crossing Into America: The New Literature of Immigration"

Books

• The Watcher of Waipuna, Bamboo Ridge Press, 1992
• A Ricepaper Airplane, University of Hawaii Press, 1998
• Children of a Fireland, University of Hawaii Presss, 2004
• Language of the Geckos and Other Stories, University of Washington Press, 2005

Plays

• Beyond the Falls (children's play)
• Plantation Children: 2nd-generation Koreans in Hawaii (TV series)