Jack William Thomas (born October 24, 1930, in Seattle, Washington) is an American screenwriter and pulp magazine author.
Thomas enlisted in the United States Navy for four years in 1950 during the period of the Korean War.
He used his profits to travel to Egypt in 1964 where he wrote a script for an unmade documentary, Nine Bows to Conquer.
Seeking secure and rewarding work, Thomas became a Los Angeles County deputy probation officer for six years.
His experiences led him to write a series of 11 novels for Bantam Books about troubled youth that were translated into five languages and sold over 1.5 million copies.