Milo Hastings

Milo Milton Hastings was an American inventor, author, and nutritionist, born on June 28, 1884, and died on February 25, 1957. He wrote across an unusually wide range of subjects, from chicken raising and food to fiction, and that mix gives his work a distinctive personality: curious, hands-on, and full of ideas.

Before many readers discovered him as a novelist, he had already made a name for himself in poultry science. He is credited with developing a forced-draft chicken incubator, and he also wrote practical agricultural work such as The Dollar Hen. Later, he became associated with health and nutrition writing and is also remembered for creating a health-food snack called Weeniwinks.

For audiobook listeners, Hastings is especially notable for City of Endless Night, a dark speculative novel first published in the early twentieth century and often discussed as an early dystopian work. Even now, his career feels unusual in the best way: part inventor, part reform-minded popular writer, and part imaginative storyteller.