Lurana Sheldon

Born on April 11, 1862, Lurana W. Sheldon was an American author, poet, short story writer, and newspaper editor. After her marriage she was also known as Lurana W. Sheldon Ferris, and she published under several pen names, including Richard Hackstaff, Stanley Norris, and Grace Shirley.

She built an unusually wide-ranging writing life, producing fiction and verse for readers of her day while also working in journalism. Accounts of her career note that her published writing added up to more than a million words, which gives a sense of both her energy and her popularity in the era of magazines, newspapers, and serialized stories.

Sheldon died on June 11, 1945. Today, she is remembered as one of those industrious late-19th- and early-20th-century writers who moved easily between editing and storytelling, leaving behind a large and varied body of work.