Wilbur Daniel Steele

Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1886, Wilbur Daniel Steele grew up in a family shaped by education and ministry. Before fully turning to writing, he studied art, and that visual training seems to fit the strong scene-making often noted in his fiction.

Steele became one of the most popular American short-story writers of his era, especially in the years between World War I and the Great Depression. Alongside short fiction, he wrote novels and plays, and his work appeared widely enough to give him a strong reputation with both magazine readers and literary audiences.

He died in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1970. Although he is less widely read today than some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure for listeners who enjoy finely crafted short fiction and a glimpse of what American literary popularity looked like in the first half of the twentieth century.