Dibs

Kaye Gibbons, author of the bestselling 1987 novel Ellen Foster – an Oprah’s Book Club selection written in the voice of a preteen and set amid scenes of domestic violence — is set to appear today before a North Carolina judge on prescription drug fraud charges, according to the Fayetteville Observer: ”The 48-year-old was charged in November with obtaining property by false pretense and illegal possession of a controlled substance. An officer said authorities were alerted to a pharmacy when Gibbons tried to pick up the prescription painkiller hydrocodone. Gibbons was released from jail in November after posting $5,500 bail.” One of Gibbons’ later books, A Virtuous Woman, was also an Oprah pick. Gibbons is the recipient of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, a Special Citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, and the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Prize in Creative Writing. Let’s hope she clears up these legal difficulties pronto.