Michael Angelo Avallone was a prolific American author of mystery and secret agent fiction, and novelizations based on TV and films. He claimed a lifetime output over 1,000 works, including novels, short stories, articles, published under his own name or over seventeen pseudonyms.
Jerry Pournelle has been a full-time science fiction writer since 1972, and was involved with the US space program prior to this. He has four children, and unlike many of his SF writer friends he prefers dogs to cats.