Kaye Gibbons is an American novelist. Her 1987 debut, Ellen Foster, received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Special Citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, and the The Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Prize in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gibbons is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and two of her books, Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman, were selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1998.

Gibbons suffers from bipolar disorder and says she is extremely creative during her manic phases. Ellen Foster was written during one such phase.

Gibbons was born in Nash County, North Carolina and went to Rocky Mount Senior High School. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. Gibbons has three daughters.