Brooks E. Hefner is a professor of English at James Madison University whose research covers American literature, periodical studies, film and popular culture. He is the author of Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow and The Word on the Streets: The American Language of Vernacular Modernism.

Hefner has written about pulp magazines, hard-boiled fiction and film, and has edited modern editions of works by Carroll John Daly.