Her full name was Nell Columbia Boyer Martin. Having worked as a strawberry picker, newspaper reporter, taxi-cab driver, lawyer's assistant, laundry worker, singer, actress and press agent before becoming a writer, she referred to herself as a "Jill of all trades." In her career as a writer, she also published under the name Columbia Boyer as well as her full name Nell Columbia Boyer Martin. Her "Maisie" short stories were published in
Top Notch Magazine in 1927–1928, and
Dashiell Hammett suggested that they may have later inspired the movie and radio series starring
Ann Sothern as the character
Maisie Ravier. However, it is recorded elsewhere that the concept for the original
Maisie film came from the novel
Dark Dame by
Wilson Collison, and Collison is credited as original writer or creator of the character on many of the
Maisie films. Her 1928 novel
Lord Byron of Broadway was made into a
movie of the same title by
MGM in 1930. She was at one time the lover of the mystery writer
Dashiell Hammett and he dedicated his 1931 novel
The Glass Key to her. She married Ashley Weed Dickinson, a journalist and author. ==Works==