'Always arrive on time!'

 

“People need dreams, there's as muchnourishment in 'em as food.” – Dorothy Gilman

 

Born in New Jersey on this date in1923, Gilman is best remembered for her Mrs. Pollifax series, a huge hit on thewritten page and the movie screen.   Begun in a time when womenin mystery meant Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and international espionagemeant James Bond or John Le Carre, her heroine became a spy in her 60s andmight be the only spy in literature to belong simultaneously to the CIA andher local garden club.

 

Gilman first wrote children’sstories under the name Dorothy Gilman Butters and then began writing adultnovels about Mrs. Pollifax, a retired grandmother who becomes a CIA agent.

 

Most of her books feature strongwomen having adventures around the world, reflective of her own internationaltravel background.  But they also feature small town life andputtering in the garden, something she enjoyed doing – cultivating vegetablesand herbs and again using that skill and knowledge in her writing.

 

Named a Grand Master by the MysteryWriters of America, she died in 2012 having authored dozens of books and myriadshort stories and pieces for magazines and newspapers.  

 

Her advice to writers was always beon schedule in everything you do.   “If something anticipated arrivestoo late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing atall. The best things arrive on time.”