Gary Michael Krist (born 1957) is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, travel journalism, and literary criticism.

Before turning to narrative nonfiction with The White Cascade (2007), a book about the 1910 Wellington avalanche, City of Scoundrels (2012), about Chicago's tragic summer of 1919, and Empire of Sin (2014), about the reform wars in turn-of-the-century New Orleans, Krist wrote three novels--Bad Chemistry (1998), Chaos Theory (2000), and Extravagance (2002).

His most recent books are The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles (2018) and Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco (2025).

His satire pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post Outlook section, and Newsday, and his stories, articles, and travel pieces have been featured in National Geographic Traveler, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Playboy, The New Republic, and Esquire, and on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts.

Krist has been awarded a 2020-2021 Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the research for Trespassers at the Golden Gate, about the early history of San Francisco.