Jeff Sutton

Born in Los Angeles on July 25, 1913, he started young in journalism, working at the Los Angeles Examiner and later as a photographer and writer for International News Photos. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps before and during World War II, including service in the Pacific, and those experiences later shaped parts of his fiction.

After the war, he built an unusually varied career. He earned a master's degree in experimental psychology at San Diego State University, worked in human factors engineering in the aerospace industry, and did editorial public relations for General Dynamics. That mix of reporting, military service, and technical work gave his novels a grounded, believable feel.

He began publishing fiction in 1958 and went on to write more than twenty novels across science fiction, war, political, and juvenile fiction, with books translated into more than ten languages. Several of his best-known titles center on space exploration, and his wife, Eugenia Geneva Sutton, edited many of his books and also collaborated with him on later works for younger readers.