Luke Short

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Luke Short was a popular Western writer.

Born in Kewanee, Illinois, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for two and a half years and then transferred to the University of Missouri at Columbia to study journalism. Following graduation in 1930 he worked for a number of newspapers before becoming a trapper in Canada then later moved to New Mexico to be an archeologist's assistant. After reading Western pulp magazines and trying to escape unemployment he began to write Western fiction. He sold his first short story and novel in 1935 under the pen name of Luke Short His apprenticeship in the pulps was comparatively brief. In 1938 he sold a short story, The Warning, to Collier's and in 1941 he sold his novel Blood on the Moon, aka Gunman's Chance to The Saturday Evening Post.

After publishing over a dozen novels in the 1930s, he started writing for films in the 40s. In 1948 alone four Luke Short novels appeared as movies. Some of his memorable film credits includes Ramrod and Blood on the Moon. His novel, The Whip, aka Doom Cliff, was serialized in both Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post.