John George Reitci was born February 26, 1922, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the back of his father's tailor shop. After high school, he became a student at the Milwaukee State Teachers College, then enlisted in the U.S. Army during WWII. After unsuccessfully trying to go back to college under the G.I. Bill, he worked for a while in his father's shop but decided to pursue a career as a writer instead. Using the pseudonym Jack Ritchie, he sold his first story, "Always the Season," to the New York Daily News in 1953. He went on to publish over 500 stories in a variety of genres during his lifetime. Shortly after completing his only novel, Tiger Island, Ritchie died of a heart attack at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Milwaukee on April 25, 1983.