Raymond Smiley Spears (1876–1950) was an American author and journalist best known for his western and outdoor adventure stories. Born in Belleview, Ohio, to a naval historian and a teacher, Spears was educated in Philadelphia, New York. A temporary move to the Adirondack Mountains to recover from a throat ailment sparked a lifelong passion for the outdoors, which would profoundly shape his subsequent literary career.\n\nSpears began his professional writing career in New York City, working as a reporter for the New York Sun for five years. He eventually returned to the countryside to pursue freelance reporting. His extensive cross-country travels, which he documented in the publication Forest and Stream, provided rich background material for his numerous fiction and non-fiction works. Spears was a prolific contributor to pulp magazines, penning 73 stories for Adventure and serializing works in Argosy. He frequently wrote under pseudonyms, most notably "Jim Smiley."\n\nIn addition to his literary pursuits, Spears was an active outdoorsman and served as the president of the American Trappers' Association during the 1930s. His published books include Camping on the Great River, The River Prophet, and The Flying Coyotes. He married C. Eleanor Shepard in 1904, with whom he had two children, and spent his later years in California, where he died in 1950.
