Felsen was born and attended school in Brooklyn, N.Y.C.He taught part time at Drake University 1964 1969 , and in 1977 left Iowa to spend his remaining years traveling After struggling financially during the Depression, Felsen sold nine books and hundreds of stories in his first eighteen months of full time freelance writing in the early 1940s After war service with the Marine Corps, during which he edited the corps magazine Leatherneck and also wrote magazine articles while stationed in the Pacific, he returned to Iowa where he lived for most of his life Felsen was a prolific author He wrote than 60 books and hundreds of articles and short stories Felsen s most popular writings were his car series books The series Hot Rod, Street Rod, Rag Top, Crash Club was especially popular with teenage males, and sold than eight million copies Hot Rod 1950 was the most popular title and remained on the best seller list for 27 years Even though his books were about young men, fast cars, and girlfriends, Felsen used many of them to moralistically explore the evils of drug abuse, sexism, and racism He claimed that I was years ahead of my time to approach and explore these topics in literature aimed at the young reader The car series also appealed to young readers because it realistically paralleled the car culture of the 1950s and the craze of hot rodding The realism in his writing was also evident in the unhappy endings and heroes who were often rebels Felsen s books reflected the morals, values, and prejudices of the time.He is also credited with one screenplay, the 1968 film Fever Heat, based on his novel of the same name which had been published under the pen name of Angus Vicker.Felsen was married twice and had two children and two stepchildren In 1977 he left West Des Moines to move to Vermont and later lived in Michigan Felsen spent much of the last two decades of his life traveling He lived in Grandville, Michigan, and died of a heart ailment in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1995.