Milo Hastings

Born in Kansas in 1884, Milo Milton Hastings built a career that was anything but narrow. He wrote fiction and nonfiction, worked as a journalist and nutrition writer, and became known as an inventor as well. One of his practical achievements was the forced-draft chicken incubator, a notable innovation in poultry raising.

As an author, he is especially remembered for City of Endless Night (1919), a dark speculative novel that imagined a regimented future society beneath Berlin. He also wrote extensively on chickens, food, and health, showing the same curiosity about how people live, eat, and organize society.

Hastings died in 1957. What makes him interesting today is the range of his work: he could be sharply imaginative in fiction and intensely practical in everyday subjects, which gives his writing an unusual mix of big ideas and hands-on experience.