L. Taylor (Lucile Taylor) Hansen

Born Lucile Taylor Hansen on November 30, 1897, she was an American writer who published early fiction as L. Taylor Hansen, using a male pen name during a period when women in science fiction often faced extra barriers. She wrote short science fiction for magazines such as Amazing Stories and also became known for nonfiction that popularized anthropology and geology.

Reference sources consistently describe her as the author of eight short stories, nearly sixty nonfiction articles, and three nonfiction books. Her later books, including He Walked the Americas and The Ancient Atlantic, show how strongly she was drawn to big historical and geological questions, blending curiosity about ancient civilizations with popular-science storytelling.

She died in 1976. Today, she is remembered both as an early woman in science fiction and as a writer whose work ranged far beyond genre boundaries, linking speculative fiction with a lifelong interest in the deep past.