Bert Shurtleff was born on August 3, 1897 to Eugene Kassuth Shurtleff and Hattie Elma (née Cook) in Adamsville, Rhode Island. He was the seventh of ten children. When he was fourteen, he left home to try to support himself, returning to school when he was 18 and attending East Greenwich Academy for High School.

During World War I, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force while attending college, eventually taking a job at a powder factory.  He eventually was activated, but not sent overseas, instead serving in New London, Connecticut and being sent for training at Brown University in Providence. When the war ended, he enrolled at Brown, where he earned the New England Intercollegiate Lightweight Wrestling Title in 1920 and played for the Brown football team, his first two years as a tackle, shifting to center his senior year. While at Brown, he also published a book of poetry.

He married Hope C. Seal on his birthday in 1922. They had three children, Jeane, Faith, and David. Hope and Shurtleff divorced at some point and in 1946, again on his birthday, he married Margaret D. Dorgan.

He played in the National Football League for the Providence Steamrollers in 1925 and 1926, returning to the league in 1929 when he played for the Boston Bulldogs. He played in 11 games for the Steamrollers (starting in three) and four games for the Bulldogs (starting in 2).

After his professional football career ended, Shurtleff turned to professional wrestling, where he would barnstorm and take on all opponents. He used the name “Mad Murdock.” He later used this experience to lecture about fakery in professional wrestling, as well as teaching English at East Providence High School and coaching wrestling. He also spent time working on tall buildings and working on a fruit boat in Costa Rica.

His first genre fiction, “Menacing Shadows,” appeared in the April 27, 1929 issue of Argosy All-Weekly. His next story, “North of Matto Grosso” was published in Amazing Stories in July, 1932. He then had seven more genre stories published in a variety of magazines between 1937 and 1944. The majority of his work was non-genre. His first novel, Carey’s Carnival appeared in 1938, and Charleston Bound was published the following year under the pseudonym S.B. Leslie. He also published two books in the Huskie and Spareribs series and five in the AWOL series.  Many of his novels were sports based.

In 1971 he was inducted into the Brown University Hall of Fame for his collegiate wrestling career.

Shurtleff died on February 15, 1967 in Anaheim, California. He was cremated and his ashes buried under a rock on the family farm in Adamsville.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-two-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.