Gilman, Dorothy

The American author Dorothy Gilman was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. After completing school, she studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1940–45 and then at the University of Pennsylvania from 1963–64. She began writing from the early age of nine, and just two years later she won an essay writing competition for 10–16 year olds. This led to her deciding to become an author and illustrator, primarily for children’s books. It took time for her career to take off, however, and she worked as a telephone operator and an art teacher in the meantime, before finally becoming a full-time writer in the 1960s.