Novelist Phyllis A. Whitney Dies at Age 104

Posted on February 18, 2008

Novelist Phyllis A. Whitney, the author of numerous romantic suspense novels, has died at age 104. Whitney wrote her last novel, Amethyst Dreams, in 1997 but she had been writing her autobiography according to the AP story.

Whitney died last Friday in a Charlottesville hospital, not far from her home in Nelson County, her son-in-law, Ed Pearson, said Thursday.

Whitney wrote more than 75 books, including three textbooks, and had about a hundred short stories published since the 1940s.

"I've slowed down in that I only write one book a year," she said in a 1989 interview with The Associated Press, when she was 85. "A writer is what I am."

Whitney's last novel, "Amethyst Dreams," was published in 1997. She began working on her autobiography at 102.

Phyllis Whitney won the Edgar Allan Poe Award twice for her juvenile mystery fiction. She was named the Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1988. The New York Times also has an obituary for Phyllis Whitney. You can find more information about her books and her full biography here on her website.

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