Kaye Gibbons was born in 1960 in Nash County, North Carolina, on Bend of the River Road. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. At twenty-six years old, she wrote her first novel, Ellen Foster (1987). This was followed by many striking novels such as A Virtuous Woman (1989), Charms for the Easy Life (1993) and On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon (1998).