BY FAYE M. DASEN: Features Editor

Nash County native Kaye Gibbons wrote her first novel, the well-received “Ellen Foster,” at the ripe old age of 26.

Now in her mid-forties, Gibbons writes of a woman’s struggle in an abusive marriage during the World War I years.

Gibbons will be at Weymouth Center in Southern Pines today (Sunday, May 2) at 3 p.m. to discuss and sign copies of her book. Her appearance is sponsored by the Country Bookshop.

“Divining Women” (Marian Wood Books/Putnam) introduces us to Maureen Ross and her husband, Troop. Maureen is pregnant, and is in a sad shape both mentally and physically.

Troop’s niece, Mary Oliver comes to help Maureen only to discover that Troop is abusive to his wife.

Mary encourages Maureen not to put up with Troop’s attitude, and before long Maureen gains the strength she needs to make an important decision.

Gibbons is currently completing one more draft of her sequel to “Ellen Foster.”

“That should be out next April,” she says in answer to an e-mail.

Another current project involves a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for the Penguin Lives Series.

“I'm even more amazed that she was able to raise such healthy and kind children despite everything that happened in her life,” says Gibbons.

Gibbons attended N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied American and English literature.

Her book, “Ellen Foster,” was honored by the Modern Library as one of the 200 Best Novels in English since 1950. Now a “classic,” it is taught in high schools and universities, sometimes teamed up with “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Catcher in the Rye” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Gibbons’ “A Virtuous Woman” was chosen (along with “Ellen Foster”) as one of Oprah’s Book Club selections in 1998.

Other books include “A Cure for Dreams,” which won the 1991 PEN/Revson Award for best work of fiction published by an American writer under 35 years of age, “Charms for the Easy Life,” “Sights Unseen” and “On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon.”

The author was recently invited to become a member of the Tennessee Humanities Council’s Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Gibbons enjoys reading as well as writing, and her bedside table currently holds a couple of classics.

“Faulkner’s ‘The Hamlet’ and James Joyce’s ‘The Dead” are two I am reading now,” she says.