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Dwight Bennett Newton was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He began publishing Western short stories in the late 1930s. In 1941 he married Mary Jane Kregel, with whom he had two daughters. He received a master's degree in history from the University of Missouri in 1942. During World War II, he served in the Army Corps of Engineers. In the late 1950s, he worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter, writing scripts for western television series such as Wagon Train, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Death Valley Days. He was a founder and the first secretary-treasurer of the Western Writers of America. Over the course of his career, he wrote 70 novels, nearly 300 short stories, and 40 television scripts. He has also crafted an original musical based on the life of outlaw Jesse James. He stopped writing in 1999, and plays songs on an upright piano instead. He died at the age of 97.