Leigh Brackett

Leigh Brackett was an American author known as the Queen of Space Opera. She wrote adventure stories set on Mars and other planets for pulp magazines in the 1940s, including Terror Out of Space. She also worked as a screenwriter with director Howard Hawks, on films such as The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo and The Long Goodbye. She wrote an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back shortly before her death in 1978.