Jack Woodford

Born Josiah Pitts Woolfolk in Chicago in 1894, he wrote under the name Jack Woodford and became a productive novelist and nonfiction author. He is especially remembered for writing guides aimed at working writers, including books on plotting, style, and the business of getting published.

Woodford's fiction career was rooted in the world of pulp magazines and commercial storytelling, and that background gave his advice books a direct, unsentimental tone. Readers and later writers have often noted how frank he was about the realities of the publishing trade, especially in Trial and Error.

He died in 1971. Today, he remains an interesting figure for readers who enjoy the history of popular fiction and for writers curious about earlier, practical approaches to craft and the marketplace.