Luke Short, whose real name is Frederick Dilley Glidden, is known as one of the most prolific authors of Western novels that ever lived. Born in 1908, Short published his first novel, "The Feud at Single Shot," in 1936. By the time of his death in 1975, he had published more than a hundred short stories and over fifty novels, with more than thirty million copies of his works in print.
Short attended the University of Missouri, where he graduated with a degree in journalism in 1930. He then became a newspaper reporter but quickly became disillusioned with the job and quit, as all he wanted to be was a writer. Between 1930 and 1931, he worked for five different publications but found it unsatisfying. He then worked several odd jobs, including fur trapping and logging in Canada and assistant to an archeologist in New Mexico. During this time, he was reading Western pulp magazines, which he enjoyed in his spare time. After reading tens of these stories, he believed that he could write better stories and decided to try his hand at writing Western fiction.
Luke Short was born in Kewanee, Illinois, and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for two and a half years before transferring 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 and later moving to New Mexico to be an archeologist's assistant. After reading Western pulp magazines and trying to escape unemployment, he started writing Western fiction. He sold his first short story and novel in 1935 under the pen name of Luke Short, which was also the name of a famous gunslinger in the Old West, although it is unclear if he was aware of this when he assumed the pen name.
In the 1940s, Short began writing for films, and in 1948 alone, four Luke Short novels appeared as movies. Some of his memorable film credits include "Ramrod" (1947) and "Blood on the Moon" (1948). He continued to write novels, despite increasing trouble with his eyes, until his death in 1975. His ashes are buried in Aspen, Colorado, his home at the time of his death.