Gelotte worked as a nurse and started publishing children's books in 1971. She made her breakthrough as a children's writer with Ida Maria från Arfliden in 1977. The book depicts her grandmother's life in Lapland in the late 19th century. The book was followed by Tyra i 10:an Odengatan (1981), which is about her mother's childhood in a working-class family in Stockholm in the 1910s to 1920s. Vi bodde i Helenelund (1983) is about her own childhood in Sollentuna köping in the 1940s and 1950s.
She also published some other autobiographical books for adults, such as the book Till morfar på fars dag (1980), where she writes about her life as a child of divorced parents.
