G. H. Otis was born Otis Hemmingway Gaylord, Jr. on September 8, 1924 in Boulder, Colorado. Upon graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the Navy where he served for the duration of World War II. In the 1950s, when he wrote his two "G. H. Otis" novels for Lion Books, he still lived in Colorado, but later moved to Southern California. He also wrote one novel under his real name – the novelization of the film, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond in 1960 – as well as ghost-writing eight Peter Dawson westerns after the original Dawson died. Otis worked as an advertising rep all his life, mostly for newspapers in Colorado, though during the mid-1960s he worked in the ad department at Walt Disney Studios. Otis died on February 26, 1992 in Boulder, Colorado.