Hughes, Dorothy B.

The American author, journalist and critic Dorothy B. Hughes, born Dorothy Belle Flanagan, never wrote much fiction, but she won prizes for her literary criticism and for her mystery novels. Some of these were adapted for the screen with great success. Hughes grew up in Kansas City and read journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, graduating in 1924. She then led a peripatetic life as a reporter and editor, working for newspapers in Missouri, New Mexico, New York and elsewhere. She did postgraduate studies at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and Columbia University, New York.