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Don Dwiggins, editor and free-lance writer, was born on November 15, 1913, in Plainfield, New Jersey and died in an automobile accident in Malibu on December 10, 1988. He was the son of Clare Victor, a cartoonist, and Bessie (Lindsay) Dwiggins. He was married to Olga Arabsky and had two children, Don Lindsay and Toni Kay. In 1942, Dwiggins entered the U.S. Army Air Force and eventually became a master sergeant. During the war he was a flight instructor with Britain's Royal Air Force. In addition to his free-lance writing, Dwiggins also served as the aviation editor for the Los Angeles Daily News (1947-54) and the Los Angeles Mirror News (1956-1962); a news writer for station KTTV, Los Angeles (1964); the editor of "Mickey Mouse Newsreel" for Disney Studios {1964); a space technology consultant for Lockheed Aircraft Co. (1964); and the senior editor for Plane and Pilot magazine {1974-1982). He is a member of the Aviation Aerospace Writers Association and the Writers Guild of America, West. For the most part, Dwiggins has written technical books on aviation and aerospace technology, which are aimed at juvenile audiences, such as Voices in the Sky and Space and the Weather. However, a bibliography of his books would also include adult novels, such as The Air Devils and at least one biography, Frankie, which is based on the life of Frank Sinatra.
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.
This sampling of manuscripts by Don Dwiggins consists entirely of working copies and carbon drafts of books published between 1966and 1976, It is only selective, however, representing mainly Dwiggin's books for young people, and does not include all of Dwiggins' writings for the period. The manuscripts are arranged-in alphabetical order by title and are followed by five books. Two of the books, Space and the Weather and Voices in the Sky, are also represented in manuscript form. The remainder is other technical juvenile books.