Born as Isabel Mary Bowler in Mantoulin Island, Ontario in 1886, she joined the staff of the Vancouver World in 1909. Her first novel The Shadow Riders (1916) would be followed by eight more books. Her parents had tried ranching near Calgary. Her education was rudimentary. An avid reader, she had worked as a waitress and taught herself shorthand. This led to work with the Canadian Pacific Railway and R.B. Bennett. Her meeting with journalist Grace Lockhart encouraged her move to Vancouver. She married Kenneth Birrell Paterson but they led independent lives. As a member of the Canadian Women's Press Club, she met Isabel Ecclestone McKay, an active and respected writer of the time. This encouraged her writing career that took her to jobs in Spokane, San Francisco and New York where she worked as a book reviewer and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune from 1924-1949. There she became acquainted with Ayn Rand as a colleague on the 'Herald Platform'. Her pseudonym was I.M.P. Her final work, The God of the Machine (1943) reflected her political views. She died in Montclair, New Jersey on January 10, 1961.
Books:

The Shadow Riders (1916)
The Magpie's Nest (1917)
The Singing Season (1924)
The Fourth Queen (1926)
The Road of the Gods (1930)
Never Ask the End (1933)
The Golden Vanity (1934)
If It Prove Fair Weather (1940)
The God of the Machine (1943)

[A.T. / BCBW 2003]