Acclaimed Lowcountry author Dorothea Benton Frank died Monday after a brief illness, according to a publicist for HarperCollins Publishers. Dorothea Benton Frank, acclaimed author of fiction novels set in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, has died after a brief illness. She was 67. Famed South Carolina author Dorothea Benton Frank died after a brief illness. Frank was 67. Sept. 2, after a brief illness, MDS, a cancer similar to leukemia. Her death was announced on her Facebook page. According to the Post and Courier, local author Dorothea Benton Frank died on Mon. COLUMBIA, S.C. — Popular novelist Dorothea Benton Frank died Monday after a brief illness. Frank …