Robert Gipe
PO Box 1394
Harlan KY 40831
[email protected]
www.robertgipe.com
606-620-3913
December 2023
Work History.
2019-present: consultant, Higher Ground community performance project at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College.
2020-2021: script consultant, Hulu limited series, Dopesick, series based on the book by Beth Macy.
2018-2019: producer, feature film The Evening Hour directed by Braden King and based on the novel of the same name by Carter Sickels.
1997-2018: director, Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College. In that capacity, Gipe connected college and community through the tools of local culture and the arts, and promotes sustainable community development. Gipe also taught English and Appalachian Studies at Southeast.
1995-1997: scout, Annenberg Rural Challenge, a national philanthropic effort that made grants of up to a half million dollars to rural schools and communities interested in connecting their curriculum to the culture of the communities in which they were located. Gipe worked throughout Appalachia, helping communities in six states craft proposals to the Rural Challenge.
1989-1995: Educational Services coordinator, Appalshop, a media arts center in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Gipe connected public school teachers to the documentary films in the Appalshop collection, which look at the history, politics, struggle for justice, and cultural life in the Appalachian coalfields and the rest of Appalachia. Gipe designed weeklong workshops that brought dozens of artists together with hundreds of rural public school teachers to learn how to create and make community. Gipe also worked with hundreds of classroom teachers in a participatory research project in partnership with Foxfire and the Breadloaf School of English on how to integrate students’ culture into the curriculum.
1987-1988: Technical writer, Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport, TN.
1986-1987: Teaching assistant, University of Massachussetts at Amherst.
1986: Spear packer, Cains Pickles, South Deerfield, MA.
1983-1984: Forklift driver, Eastman Chemical Company.
Additional background on theater and community work.
Since 2002, the oral history-based theater project Higher Ground has been central to Gipe’s work. Through Higher Ground, Gipe has worked with over seven hundred community members in Harlan County to document issues that face the county, including drug abuse, environmental degradation as a result of mining, lack of jobs, outmigration, discrimination based on race and sexual orientation, and our lack of willingness as a community to talk through these issues. With the community and guest artists, Gipe has been part of the team that has written and produced nine original musical dramas with a tenth scheduled to debut in July 2024. Over two hundred community residents have participated as cast. Higher Ground productions have been presented at theater festivals, and conferences at various places in the eastern United States and locations throughout the community.
In 2022, One Nation/One Project, a national program exploring how to use the arts to promote community health & wellness, selected Higher Ground and Harlan County is one of 18 communities to create work in theater and produce a community arts & wellness festival. Harlan’s MAMAW (Mountains of Appalachia Arts & Wellness) Festival will take place in July, 2024.
In 2017, an Eastern Kentucky health care coalition sponsored the creation of the Higher Ground play Needle Work, written to help communities discuss harm reduction and needle exchange programs for intravenous drug addicts.
In 2016, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's design museum, included Higher Ground in its exhibit By The People, an exhibit about exemplary projects that integrate design into work in communities underserved by design and designers.
Gipe’s Southeast work has also included facilitating community creation of seven tile mosaic public art pieces around Harlan County; fifteen Crawdad student arts festivals; the creation of a curriculum in Professional Pottery; the It’s Good To Be Young in the Mountains conference, and, for fifteen years, the coordination of SKCTC’s participation in the Appalachian Teaching Project (ATP). ATP is supported primarily by the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency of the federal government. ATP brings together students from colleges and universities across the region who have been working in classes on community development projects targeted at specific communities within the mountain region. In 2017, Gipe helped secure funding for the Southeast Kentucky Revitalization Project which provides workforce training designed to help the central Appalachian workforce participate in the renovation and re-invention of communities in the region. The project through the Mountain Training Network (MTN) trains Eastern Kentucky workers in the construction trades, the hospitality industry, and design-related trades and connect them with employers and developers in their home communities.
1997-present. Member, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, an environmental & social justice organization.
2013-present. Board co-chair, Harlan County Community Foundation. Coordinating renovation of a department store building in downtown Harlan in collaboration with MTN.
Awards for community work.
2023. Helen Lewis Award for Community Service, Appalachian Studies Association.
2013. President’s Award, Harlan Chamber of Commerce.
2013. East Kentucky Leadership Foundation, Arts & Culture Award (for the community performance project Higher Ground), 2013;
2004. New Horizons Award for Faculty Excellence, Kentucky Community & Technical College System.
Grantwriting.
Gipe has written and consulted on successful grant proposals totaling over $7,000,000 including the following: The Sociable Weaver Foundation, 2023; One Nation/One Project, 2022; Mellon Foundation, 2021; James Graham Brown Foundation, 2020; US Department of Agriculture, 2018; Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, 2017; Appalachian Regional Commission POWER program, 2017; National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant, 2014; The Chorus Foundation, 2013; The Robert E. Frazier Foundation 2013-2015; ArtPlace community development grant, 2012; Appalachian Regional Commission for Tri-Cities Heritage Development Corporation, 2009 & 2010; Appalachian Regional Commission for Higher Ground, 2007; The Steele-Reese Foundation, 2008; John D. Rockefeller Foundation, Partnerships Affirming Community Transformation, 2002; Kentucky Foundation for Women, 1999, 2004; Kentucky Arts Council, 1998-2000; Kentucky Humanities Council, 2000; GEAR-UP, U.S. Department of Education, 1999; Appalachian Teaching Project mini-grants, 2001-present; DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Appalshop School Initiative, 1990; Surdna Foundation, Appalshop, Where Art Meets Ed, 1993; Nathan Cummings Foundation, Appalshop Educational Services, 1991.
Novels.
Trampoline: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press, 2015. Winner, 2015 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. The Knoxville News-Sentinel called Trampoline “a new American masterpiece.” Library Journal called it “deeply lovable.” In 2021, Disney optioned Trampoline for development into a limited series. Parts of Trampoline are anthologized in Writing Appalachia: An Anthology Edited by Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd and Rebecca Stephens (University Press of Kentucky, 2020).
Weedeater: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press in 2018. Finalist, 2018 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction.
Pop: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press, 2021. Finalist, 2021 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. Publishers Weekly called it "addictive," "delightful," and possessed of "feral lyricism."
Short fiction.
"Comfort Food," Gravy, a publication of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Summer 2018.
“Troubled Colon,” Appalachian Heritage 40th Anniversary Issue, 2013.
“Useless,” Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, 2015.
“One Good Reason,” in Hidden City Quarterly.
“Dopesick,” The Pikeville Review.
Non-fiction.
“Appalachia is More Diverse Than You Think,” op-ed, The New York Times, March 15, 2019.
“Back To Harlan,” in the 2nd edition of Which Side Are You On: The Harlan Coal Miners, 1931-1939 by John Hevener (University of Illinois Press, 2002).
“Confessions of a Spear Packer,” The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell,” Ohio University Press, 2019.
"How Appalachian I Am," Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll West Virginia University Press, 2019);
Interview with Ann Pancake, Appalachian Journal, Winter 2011.
Review, Appalachia in the Classroom, edited by Theresa Burriss and Patricia Gantt, Journal of Appalachian Studies, Fall 2014.
Review, Crapalachia: A Novel by Scott McClanahan, Appalachian Journal, Spring/Summer 2013.
Review, Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley by Ann Pancake, Appalachian Journal.
"Twixt the Holler and the Mall: Appalshop Video in an Eastern Kentucky Classroom," (with Ann Messer) Proceedings of the Southern Anthropological Society, 1992.
"Unsuitable: The Fight to Save Black Mountain, 1998-1999," in Confronting Ecological Crisis in Appalachia and the South: University and Community Partnerships (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). This essay discusses Gipe's community’s effort to protect the highest elevations in Kentucky and the communities nearby from damage related to strip mining.
Plays.
Higher Ground writing process is a collaborative one, but Gipe has served as principal coordinator of the playwriting process since the project’s inception, and since 2009 has been the principal playwright. Part of the first Higher Ground script is anthologized in Writing Appalachia: An Anthology
Edited by Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd and Rebecca Stephens (University Press of Kentucky, 2020). Higher Ground scripts that have been produced and performed include:
Higher Ground, 2005. Jo Carson, prinicipal playwright.
Playing With Fire, 2009. Jo Carson and Jerry Stropnicky, principal playwrights.
Talking Dirt, 2011. With Carpetbag Theater.
Foglights, 2013. With Community Performance International.
Find A Way, 2015. With Carrie Billett.
Life Is Like A Vapor, 2016.
Needle Work, 2017.
Perfect Buckets, 2019.
Shift Change, 2021.
Awards for writing.
2015-2021. All three of Gipe’s novels have been finalists for the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. The Weatherford Awards honor books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities and unique qualities of the Appalachian South,” and is granted by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Trampoline won the 2015 Weatherford Award for Appalachian fiction.
2019. Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer-in-Residence. The Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer’s Residency was created to strengthen literary connections between Appalachia and western Kentucky while enhancing the growth of creative writing students at Murray State.
2021. Gipe’s first three novels collectively won the Judy Gaines Young Award for Appalachian Literature presented by Transylvania University.
Writing about Gipe’s work.
Bishop, Bill. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (Houghton-Mifflin, 2008)
Locklear, Erica Abrams. Appalachia On the Table: Representing Mountain Food & People (University of Georgia Press, 2023).
Macy, Beth. “The Mountains Aren't Empty: Robert Gipe at Capacity’s Ragged Edge,” The Oxford American, Fall 2018.
Mullinax, Maureen. “Resistance Through Community-based Arts,” in Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia(University of Illinois Press, 2012)
Oliver, Graham. “Robert Gipe: A Cure for Despair,” Guernica, November 25, 2019.
Portelli, Alessandro. They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Renkl, Margaret. "University Presses Are Keeping American Literature Alive,” The New York Times, November 14, 2022. Renkl says of Gipe's work: "Trampoline, Weedeater and Pop collectively address with wit and complexity the trials of white working-class life in Appalachia: the struggles with addiction, but also the corporate exploitation of the region and its inhabitants; the violence but also the beauty."
Tavernise, Sabrina. “Tackling The Problems of Appalachia, Theatrically.” The New York Times, 2011.
Tomlinson, Tommy. “From the Hills of Harlan,” Wake Forest Magazine, Spring 2017.
Classes that have used Gipe’s work.
Among others: Paul Blazer High School (Ashland KY), Ohio University Honors, University of Pikeville, Berea College, Lees McRae College, WBCM Birthplace of Country Music Radio Book Club, Hurricane High School, Hurricane WV, Appalachian State University, West Virginia University, Thomas More University, Hazard Community College, the University of Kentucky, Emory & Henry College, the East Tennessee State University Upward Bound program, Stetson University, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Radford University, and Virginia Tech.
Teaching Experience.
Gipe has taught the following college courses: English 101 & 102; Survey of Appalachian Studies I & II; Appalachian Seminar; Survey of Appalachian Literature; Introduction to Contemporary Thought; American Seminar; and Craft Marketing.
Education.
Master of arts, English/American Studies, University of Massachusetts, 1988. Gipe’s master’s thesis is entitled Zone Defense: The Rhetoric of the Outsider in the Art-Worlds of Emily Dickinson and Joseph Cornell.
Bachelor of arts, English, Wake Forest University, 1985.
Graduate, Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, Tennessee, 1981.
Writing Education.
2006-present. Appalachian Writers Workshop, in Hindman, Kentucky. There Gipe has taken creative writing workshops with, among others, Jennifer Haigh, Sharyn McCrumb, Lisa Alther, Silas House, Amy Greene, Crystal Wilkinson, Marie Manilla, David Joy, George Singleton, and Ann Pancake.
2010-2011. Extended novel workshop with Darnell Arnoult. Over eighteen months, Gipe spent six weekends with Arnoult creating the first draft of his novel Trampoline. Gipe also worked with Arnoult and others as part of the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival as both participant, reader, and workshop leader.
Recent speaking engagements.
2023. Winterburrow, Hindman Settlement School.
2023. Gurneyfest, Lexington KY.
2023. Norfolk VA. Slover Library.
2023. Archives of the City of Kingsport. Lecture, "Growing Up in Circles: The Journey of A Model City Boy." Contains the story of going to 31 Pal's in one day.
2022. Louisville KY. IKT Congress. An international gathering of art curators.
2022. Hazard KY. Big Ideas Festival w Ashley Blooms, Carter Sickels, Crystal Good, Mandi Fugate Sheffel, Neema Avashia.
2022. Arnow Conference in the Humanities sponsored by Somerset Community College. Keynote speaker.
2020. Kentucky Library Association Annual Conference. Virtual keynote.
2020. James Thurber House in Columbus, OH.
2019: TEDxCorbin, Corbin, KY. Talk about art & OxyContin & PurduePharma reparations
2018. National Council of Teachers of English, Houston TX with Jessica Maunz Salfia and Natalie Sypolt.
2018. UNC-Asheville, Asheville, NC. Power of Place NEH Summer Institute.
2018. Ohio University, Athens, OH. Rural Women Studies Association conference. With Elana Scopa Forson, Devyn Gracyn Creech.
2011-2015: Hindman Settlement School, Appalachian Writers Week. Served as master of ceremonies for the evening readings at Hindman, and in so doing, did a fair amount of research into the lives of the writers listed above and others such as Gurney Norman, Maurice Manning, Barbara Kingsolver, Nikki Finney, Pam Duncan, Charles Dodd White, Jesse Graves, Glenn Taylor, Alex Taylor, C. Michael Curtis, Elizabeth Cox, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Mark Powell, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, and George Ella Lyon.
1989-present. Appalachian Studies Association. Since 1989, Gipe has been active with the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) in a variety of roles. Gipe has served as scholarship committee chair; presented at the conference, about graphic design in the mountains, with fellow Higher Ground cast members, about Higher Ground’s oral history process, presenting Appalshop films, reading fiction, and in various other roles.
Recent residencies & workshops.
2023. Amesville Writers Workshop, Amesville OH.
2023. Wiley's Last Resort, Letcher Co KY.
2022. Lotts Creek KY. Cordia School residency. Part of Ironwood Writers Studio.
2022. Abingdon VA. Virginia Highlands Festival Writers Day.
2022. Hindman, KY. Ironwood Young Writers Workshop.
2022. Ashe Co NC. North Fork Writers Workshop.
2021 & 2019. Appalachian Writers Workshop, Hindman Settlement School, Hindman KY.
2021. Chattanooga Writers Guild.
2019. On The Same Page Literary Festival. Ashe County, NC. Writer-in-residence
2018. Furman University, Greenville SC. Writer-in-residence.
2016. Tennessee Young Writers Workshop.
Recent performances.
In addition to producing the community performance project Higher Ground and serving as coordinator of the playwriting process, Gipe also performs with the project, having appeared in over fifty performances, primarily in Harlan County. Traveling performances include:
2022. Pound VA. Red Fox Storytelling Festival.
2019. Perfect Buckets for the Southern Foodways Alliance. Oxford, MS.
2019. Needle Work, Nelsonville OH. For the Appalachian Funders Network.
2019. Higher Ground: Needle Work performance, Berea College, Berea KY.
Recent readings.
2023. Kentucky Arts & Letters Day. The Berry Center, New Castle KY.
2023. Burnsville NC. Carolina Mountains Literary Festival.
2023. Hazard KY. Read Spotted Newt with Willie Carver
2023. Glenville WV. Glenville State University.
2022. Abingdon VA. Friends of Washington County Library.
2022. Covington KY. Reading at Y'alls Hootenanny at BLDG.
2022. North Georgia State University. Dahlonega GA.
2022. Surface Noise, Louisville KY. With Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2022. Danville, KY. Art Center of the Bluegrass.
2022. Knoxville TN, The Bottom. Part of Waymakers Collective conference.
2022. Cincinnati OH. Flood benefit at WordPlay.
2022. Luigart Studios, Lexington KY. For flood relief.
2022. Hazard KY. Reading & Victuals dinner.
2022. Ashland KY. Kentucky Association of School Librarians.
2021. Cumberland Gap TN. Gap Creek Coffeehouse with Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2021. Kentucky Great Writers Series, Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning. With Angela Jackson-Brown and Wes Browne.
2021. The Art Station, Hazard KY. The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell with other contributors.
2021. Give A Little Gala, Grayson KY. For EKY Mutual Aid.
2021. Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, KY. With Ed Nardie White and Albert Shumake IV.
2021. Stuart Opera House, Nelsonville OH.
2021. Union Ave Books and Choice Health Network Harm Reduction with Lesley-Marie Buer.
2021. Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH. With Pauletta Hansel.
2021. Scuppernong Books, Greensboro NC. A virtual conversation with Leah Hampton.
2021. Kingsport Public Library, Kingsport TN. Behind The Book Series.
2020. Pine Mountain Sessions at Home for the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.
Recent public conversations.
2023. Lexington KY. Book club at Blackburn Correctional Complex.
2022. 3pm, Johnson City TN. Johnson City Public Library. with Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2022. Lexington KY. Words for the People podcast. With Crystal Wilkinson and Marianne Worthington.
2022. Virtual Read Spotted Newt, Hazard KY. Conversation with Ashley Blooms.
2021. with Gurney Norman and Bernard Clay. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington, KY.
2021. Taylor Books, Charleston WV. With Beth Macy.
2021. Kentucky Book Fair, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington KY.
2021. Emory & Henry University.
2021. With Wes Browne and Mandi Fugate Sheffel for The Read Spotted Newt.
2021. Possum Book Club with DJ Lewis.
2021. Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville NC. with Annette Clapsaddle
2020. Kentucky Book Festival. "Views of a Place: Writing Kentucky, Then & Now." a virtual event with Ashley Blooms, Silas House, and Karen Salyer McElmurray.
2020. Virtual Fundraiser for the Appalachian Writers Week. With Ron Davis & Crystal Wilkinson.
2019. Conversation with Gurney Norman. University of Kentucky, Lexington KY.
Earlier appearances include: West Virginia Council on Teachers of English, Morgantown, WV. Keynote speaker.Ashe County (NC) Public Library; Murray State University; Greensboro Bound Literary Festival; Empire Books, Huntington WV.; Tom Tom Founders Festival, Charlottesville, VA; Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, VA; Knoxville Museum of Art; Marshall University, McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, NC.; Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC.; Southern Festival of Books; James Agee Conference for Literature & Arts, Pellissippi State CC, Knoxville TN; Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development annual conference, Chillicothe OH; Harlan Women's Club at Dairy Queen Harlan, Kentucky; Malaprops Books, Asheville NC; Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, Lexington, KY; Sugar Hill Brewing Co., St. Paul, VA; Taylor Books, Charleston WV; Coffeetree Books, Morehead, KY; 123 Pleasant Street, Morgantown WV; Apollo Pizza, Richmond, KY, with Ronni Lundy; UNC-Asheville; Mercantile Library, Cincinnati OH.; Brier Books, Lexington KY.; Big Sandy Community & Technical College, Prestonsburg KY.; Christ Church, Lexington KY; Appalachian Writers Symposium Berea; Books by the Banks literary festival in Cincinnati; Oxford (MS) Festival of the Book; West Virginia Wesleyan University; Holler Poet series in Lexington; The Morris Book Shop in Lexington; Pages and Pints reading series, Richmond, KY; Highlands Literary Festival, Radford University; Thomas More University; Appalshop’s Seedtime on the Cumberland festival; It’s Good To Be Young in the Mountains conference, Harlan, KY.
PO Box 1394
Harlan KY 40831
[email protected]
www.robertgipe.com
606-620-3913
December 2023
Work History.
2019-present: consultant, Higher Ground community performance project at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College.
2020-2021: script consultant, Hulu limited series, Dopesick, series based on the book by Beth Macy.
2018-2019: producer, feature film The Evening Hour directed by Braden King and based on the novel of the same name by Carter Sickels.
1997-2018: director, Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College. In that capacity, Gipe connected college and community through the tools of local culture and the arts, and promotes sustainable community development. Gipe also taught English and Appalachian Studies at Southeast.
1995-1997: scout, Annenberg Rural Challenge, a national philanthropic effort that made grants of up to a half million dollars to rural schools and communities interested in connecting their curriculum to the culture of the communities in which they were located. Gipe worked throughout Appalachia, helping communities in six states craft proposals to the Rural Challenge.
1989-1995: Educational Services coordinator, Appalshop, a media arts center in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Gipe connected public school teachers to the documentary films in the Appalshop collection, which look at the history, politics, struggle for justice, and cultural life in the Appalachian coalfields and the rest of Appalachia. Gipe designed weeklong workshops that brought dozens of artists together with hundreds of rural public school teachers to learn how to create and make community. Gipe also worked with hundreds of classroom teachers in a participatory research project in partnership with Foxfire and the Breadloaf School of English on how to integrate students’ culture into the curriculum.
1987-1988: Technical writer, Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport, TN.
1986-1987: Teaching assistant, University of Massachussetts at Amherst.
1986: Spear packer, Cains Pickles, South Deerfield, MA.
1983-1984: Forklift driver, Eastman Chemical Company.
Additional background on theater and community work.
Since 2002, the oral history-based theater project Higher Ground has been central to Gipe’s work. Through Higher Ground, Gipe has worked with over seven hundred community members in Harlan County to document issues that face the county, including drug abuse, environmental degradation as a result of mining, lack of jobs, outmigration, discrimination based on race and sexual orientation, and our lack of willingness as a community to talk through these issues. With the community and guest artists, Gipe has been part of the team that has written and produced nine original musical dramas with a tenth scheduled to debut in July 2024. Over two hundred community residents have participated as cast. Higher Ground productions have been presented at theater festivals, and conferences at various places in the eastern United States and locations throughout the community.
In 2022, One Nation/One Project, a national program exploring how to use the arts to promote community health & wellness, selected Higher Ground and Harlan County is one of 18 communities to create work in theater and produce a community arts & wellness festival. Harlan’s MAMAW (Mountains of Appalachia Arts & Wellness) Festival will take place in July, 2024.
In 2017, an Eastern Kentucky health care coalition sponsored the creation of the Higher Ground play Needle Work, written to help communities discuss harm reduction and needle exchange programs for intravenous drug addicts.
In 2016, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's design museum, included Higher Ground in its exhibit By The People, an exhibit about exemplary projects that integrate design into work in communities underserved by design and designers.
Gipe’s Southeast work has also included facilitating community creation of seven tile mosaic public art pieces around Harlan County; fifteen Crawdad student arts festivals; the creation of a curriculum in Professional Pottery; the It’s Good To Be Young in the Mountains conference, and, for fifteen years, the coordination of SKCTC’s participation in the Appalachian Teaching Project (ATP). ATP is supported primarily by the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency of the federal government. ATP brings together students from colleges and universities across the region who have been working in classes on community development projects targeted at specific communities within the mountain region. In 2017, Gipe helped secure funding for the Southeast Kentucky Revitalization Project which provides workforce training designed to help the central Appalachian workforce participate in the renovation and re-invention of communities in the region. The project through the Mountain Training Network (MTN) trains Eastern Kentucky workers in the construction trades, the hospitality industry, and design-related trades and connect them with employers and developers in their home communities.
1997-present. Member, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, an environmental & social justice organization.
2013-present. Board co-chair, Harlan County Community Foundation. Coordinating renovation of a department store building in downtown Harlan in collaboration with MTN.
Awards for community work.
2023. Helen Lewis Award for Community Service, Appalachian Studies Association.
2013. President’s Award, Harlan Chamber of Commerce.
2013. East Kentucky Leadership Foundation, Arts & Culture Award (for the community performance project Higher Ground), 2013;
2004. New Horizons Award for Faculty Excellence, Kentucky Community & Technical College System.
Grantwriting.
Gipe has written and consulted on successful grant proposals totaling over $7,000,000 including the following: The Sociable Weaver Foundation, 2023; One Nation/One Project, 2022; Mellon Foundation, 2021; James Graham Brown Foundation, 2020; US Department of Agriculture, 2018; Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, 2017; Appalachian Regional Commission POWER program, 2017; National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant, 2014; The Chorus Foundation, 2013; The Robert E. Frazier Foundation 2013-2015; ArtPlace community development grant, 2012; Appalachian Regional Commission for Tri-Cities Heritage Development Corporation, 2009 & 2010; Appalachian Regional Commission for Higher Ground, 2007; The Steele-Reese Foundation, 2008; John D. Rockefeller Foundation, Partnerships Affirming Community Transformation, 2002; Kentucky Foundation for Women, 1999, 2004; Kentucky Arts Council, 1998-2000; Kentucky Humanities Council, 2000; GEAR-UP, U.S. Department of Education, 1999; Appalachian Teaching Project mini-grants, 2001-present; DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Appalshop School Initiative, 1990; Surdna Foundation, Appalshop, Where Art Meets Ed, 1993; Nathan Cummings Foundation, Appalshop Educational Services, 1991.
Novels.
Trampoline: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press, 2015. Winner, 2015 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. The Knoxville News-Sentinel called Trampoline “a new American masterpiece.” Library Journal called it “deeply lovable.” In 2021, Disney optioned Trampoline for development into a limited series. Parts of Trampoline are anthologized in Writing Appalachia: An Anthology Edited by Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd and Rebecca Stephens (University Press of Kentucky, 2020).
Weedeater: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press in 2018. Finalist, 2018 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction.
Pop: An Illustrated Novel, Ohio University Press, 2021. Finalist, 2021 Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. Publishers Weekly called it "addictive," "delightful," and possessed of "feral lyricism."
Short fiction.
"Comfort Food," Gravy, a publication of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Summer 2018.
“Troubled Colon,” Appalachian Heritage 40th Anniversary Issue, 2013.
“Useless,” Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, 2015.
“One Good Reason,” in Hidden City Quarterly.
“Dopesick,” The Pikeville Review.
Non-fiction.
“Appalachia is More Diverse Than You Think,” op-ed, The New York Times, March 15, 2019.
“Back To Harlan,” in the 2nd edition of Which Side Are You On: The Harlan Coal Miners, 1931-1939 by John Hevener (University of Illinois Press, 2002).
“Confessions of a Spear Packer,” The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell,” Ohio University Press, 2019.
"How Appalachian I Am," Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll West Virginia University Press, 2019);
Interview with Ann Pancake, Appalachian Journal, Winter 2011.
Review, Appalachia in the Classroom, edited by Theresa Burriss and Patricia Gantt, Journal of Appalachian Studies, Fall 2014.
Review, Crapalachia: A Novel by Scott McClanahan, Appalachian Journal, Spring/Summer 2013.
Review, Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley by Ann Pancake, Appalachian Journal.
"Twixt the Holler and the Mall: Appalshop Video in an Eastern Kentucky Classroom," (with Ann Messer) Proceedings of the Southern Anthropological Society, 1992.
"Unsuitable: The Fight to Save Black Mountain, 1998-1999," in Confronting Ecological Crisis in Appalachia and the South: University and Community Partnerships (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). This essay discusses Gipe's community’s effort to protect the highest elevations in Kentucky and the communities nearby from damage related to strip mining.
Plays.
Higher Ground writing process is a collaborative one, but Gipe has served as principal coordinator of the playwriting process since the project’s inception, and since 2009 has been the principal playwright. Part of the first Higher Ground script is anthologized in Writing Appalachia: An Anthology
Edited by Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd and Rebecca Stephens (University Press of Kentucky, 2020). Higher Ground scripts that have been produced and performed include:
Higher Ground, 2005. Jo Carson, prinicipal playwright.
Playing With Fire, 2009. Jo Carson and Jerry Stropnicky, principal playwrights.
Talking Dirt, 2011. With Carpetbag Theater.
Foglights, 2013. With Community Performance International.
Find A Way, 2015. With Carrie Billett.
Life Is Like A Vapor, 2016.
Needle Work, 2017.
Perfect Buckets, 2019.
Shift Change, 2021.
Awards for writing.
2015-2021. All three of Gipe’s novels have been finalists for the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction. The Weatherford Awards honor books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities and unique qualities of the Appalachian South,” and is granted by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Trampoline won the 2015 Weatherford Award for Appalachian fiction.
2019. Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer-in-Residence. The Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer’s Residency was created to strengthen literary connections between Appalachia and western Kentucky while enhancing the growth of creative writing students at Murray State.
2021. Gipe’s first three novels collectively won the Judy Gaines Young Award for Appalachian Literature presented by Transylvania University.
Writing about Gipe’s work.
Bishop, Bill. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (Houghton-Mifflin, 2008)
Locklear, Erica Abrams. Appalachia On the Table: Representing Mountain Food & People (University of Georgia Press, 2023).
Macy, Beth. “The Mountains Aren't Empty: Robert Gipe at Capacity’s Ragged Edge,” The Oxford American, Fall 2018.
Mullinax, Maureen. “Resistance Through Community-based Arts,” in Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia(University of Illinois Press, 2012)
Oliver, Graham. “Robert Gipe: A Cure for Despair,” Guernica, November 25, 2019.
Portelli, Alessandro. They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Renkl, Margaret. "University Presses Are Keeping American Literature Alive,” The New York Times, November 14, 2022. Renkl says of Gipe's work: "Trampoline, Weedeater and Pop collectively address with wit and complexity the trials of white working-class life in Appalachia: the struggles with addiction, but also the corporate exploitation of the region and its inhabitants; the violence but also the beauty."
Tavernise, Sabrina. “Tackling The Problems of Appalachia, Theatrically.” The New York Times, 2011.
Tomlinson, Tommy. “From the Hills of Harlan,” Wake Forest Magazine, Spring 2017.
Classes that have used Gipe’s work.
Among others: Paul Blazer High School (Ashland KY), Ohio University Honors, University of Pikeville, Berea College, Lees McRae College, WBCM Birthplace of Country Music Radio Book Club, Hurricane High School, Hurricane WV, Appalachian State University, West Virginia University, Thomas More University, Hazard Community College, the University of Kentucky, Emory & Henry College, the East Tennessee State University Upward Bound program, Stetson University, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Radford University, and Virginia Tech.
Teaching Experience.
Gipe has taught the following college courses: English 101 & 102; Survey of Appalachian Studies I & II; Appalachian Seminar; Survey of Appalachian Literature; Introduction to Contemporary Thought; American Seminar; and Craft Marketing.
Education.
Master of arts, English/American Studies, University of Massachusetts, 1988. Gipe’s master’s thesis is entitled Zone Defense: The Rhetoric of the Outsider in the Art-Worlds of Emily Dickinson and Joseph Cornell.
Bachelor of arts, English, Wake Forest University, 1985.
Graduate, Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, Tennessee, 1981.
Writing Education.
2006-present. Appalachian Writers Workshop, in Hindman, Kentucky. There Gipe has taken creative writing workshops with, among others, Jennifer Haigh, Sharyn McCrumb, Lisa Alther, Silas House, Amy Greene, Crystal Wilkinson, Marie Manilla, David Joy, George Singleton, and Ann Pancake.
2010-2011. Extended novel workshop with Darnell Arnoult. Over eighteen months, Gipe spent six weekends with Arnoult creating the first draft of his novel Trampoline. Gipe also worked with Arnoult and others as part of the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival as both participant, reader, and workshop leader.
Recent speaking engagements.
2023. Winterburrow, Hindman Settlement School.
2023. Gurneyfest, Lexington KY.
2023. Norfolk VA. Slover Library.
2023. Archives of the City of Kingsport. Lecture, "Growing Up in Circles: The Journey of A Model City Boy." Contains the story of going to 31 Pal's in one day.
2022. Louisville KY. IKT Congress. An international gathering of art curators.
2022. Hazard KY. Big Ideas Festival w Ashley Blooms, Carter Sickels, Crystal Good, Mandi Fugate Sheffel, Neema Avashia.
2022. Arnow Conference in the Humanities sponsored by Somerset Community College. Keynote speaker.
2020. Kentucky Library Association Annual Conference. Virtual keynote.
2020. James Thurber House in Columbus, OH.
2019: TEDxCorbin, Corbin, KY. Talk about art & OxyContin & PurduePharma reparations
2018. National Council of Teachers of English, Houston TX with Jessica Maunz Salfia and Natalie Sypolt.
2018. UNC-Asheville, Asheville, NC. Power of Place NEH Summer Institute.
2018. Ohio University, Athens, OH. Rural Women Studies Association conference. With Elana Scopa Forson, Devyn Gracyn Creech.
2011-2015: Hindman Settlement School, Appalachian Writers Week. Served as master of ceremonies for the evening readings at Hindman, and in so doing, did a fair amount of research into the lives of the writers listed above and others such as Gurney Norman, Maurice Manning, Barbara Kingsolver, Nikki Finney, Pam Duncan, Charles Dodd White, Jesse Graves, Glenn Taylor, Alex Taylor, C. Michael Curtis, Elizabeth Cox, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Mark Powell, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, and George Ella Lyon.
1989-present. Appalachian Studies Association. Since 1989, Gipe has been active with the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) in a variety of roles. Gipe has served as scholarship committee chair; presented at the conference, about graphic design in the mountains, with fellow Higher Ground cast members, about Higher Ground’s oral history process, presenting Appalshop films, reading fiction, and in various other roles.
Recent residencies & workshops.
2023. Amesville Writers Workshop, Amesville OH.
2023. Wiley's Last Resort, Letcher Co KY.
2022. Lotts Creek KY. Cordia School residency. Part of Ironwood Writers Studio.
2022. Abingdon VA. Virginia Highlands Festival Writers Day.
2022. Hindman, KY. Ironwood Young Writers Workshop.
2022. Ashe Co NC. North Fork Writers Workshop.
2021 & 2019. Appalachian Writers Workshop, Hindman Settlement School, Hindman KY.
2021. Chattanooga Writers Guild.
2019. On The Same Page Literary Festival. Ashe County, NC. Writer-in-residence
2018. Furman University, Greenville SC. Writer-in-residence.
2016. Tennessee Young Writers Workshop.
Recent performances.
In addition to producing the community performance project Higher Ground and serving as coordinator of the playwriting process, Gipe also performs with the project, having appeared in over fifty performances, primarily in Harlan County. Traveling performances include:
2022. Pound VA. Red Fox Storytelling Festival.
2019. Perfect Buckets for the Southern Foodways Alliance. Oxford, MS.
2019. Needle Work, Nelsonville OH. For the Appalachian Funders Network.
2019. Higher Ground: Needle Work performance, Berea College, Berea KY.
Recent readings.
2023. Kentucky Arts & Letters Day. The Berry Center, New Castle KY.
2023. Burnsville NC. Carolina Mountains Literary Festival.
2023. Hazard KY. Read Spotted Newt with Willie Carver
2023. Glenville WV. Glenville State University.
2022. Abingdon VA. Friends of Washington County Library.
2022. Covington KY. Reading at Y'alls Hootenanny at BLDG.
2022. North Georgia State University. Dahlonega GA.
2022. Surface Noise, Louisville KY. With Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2022. Danville, KY. Art Center of the Bluegrass.
2022. Knoxville TN, The Bottom. Part of Waymakers Collective conference.
2022. Cincinnati OH. Flood benefit at WordPlay.
2022. Luigart Studios, Lexington KY. For flood relief.
2022. Hazard KY. Reading & Victuals dinner.
2022. Ashland KY. Kentucky Association of School Librarians.
2021. Cumberland Gap TN. Gap Creek Coffeehouse with Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2021. Kentucky Great Writers Series, Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning. With Angela Jackson-Brown and Wes Browne.
2021. The Art Station, Hazard KY. The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell with other contributors.
2021. Give A Little Gala, Grayson KY. For EKY Mutual Aid.
2021. Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, KY. With Ed Nardie White and Albert Shumake IV.
2021. Stuart Opera House, Nelsonville OH.
2021. Union Ave Books and Choice Health Network Harm Reduction with Lesley-Marie Buer.
2021. Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH. With Pauletta Hansel.
2021. Scuppernong Books, Greensboro NC. A virtual conversation with Leah Hampton.
2021. Kingsport Public Library, Kingsport TN. Behind The Book Series.
2020. Pine Mountain Sessions at Home for the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.
Recent public conversations.
2023. Lexington KY. Book club at Blackburn Correctional Complex.
2022. 3pm, Johnson City TN. Johnson City Public Library. with Shawna Kay Rodenberg.
2022. Lexington KY. Words for the People podcast. With Crystal Wilkinson and Marianne Worthington.
2022. Virtual Read Spotted Newt, Hazard KY. Conversation with Ashley Blooms.
2021. with Gurney Norman and Bernard Clay. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington, KY.
2021. Taylor Books, Charleston WV. With Beth Macy.
2021. Kentucky Book Fair, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington KY.
2021. Emory & Henry University.
2021. With Wes Browne and Mandi Fugate Sheffel for The Read Spotted Newt.
2021. Possum Book Club with DJ Lewis.
2021. Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville NC. with Annette Clapsaddle
2020. Kentucky Book Festival. "Views of a Place: Writing Kentucky, Then & Now." a virtual event with Ashley Blooms, Silas House, and Karen Salyer McElmurray.
2020. Virtual Fundraiser for the Appalachian Writers Week. With Ron Davis & Crystal Wilkinson.
2019. Conversation with Gurney Norman. University of Kentucky, Lexington KY.
Earlier appearances include: West Virginia Council on Teachers of English, Morgantown, WV. Keynote speaker.Ashe County (NC) Public Library; Murray State University; Greensboro Bound Literary Festival; Empire Books, Huntington WV.; Tom Tom Founders Festival, Charlottesville, VA; Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, VA; Knoxville Museum of Art; Marshall University, McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, NC.; Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC.; Southern Festival of Books; James Agee Conference for Literature & Arts, Pellissippi State CC, Knoxville TN; Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development annual conference, Chillicothe OH; Harlan Women's Club at Dairy Queen Harlan, Kentucky; Malaprops Books, Asheville NC; Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, Lexington, KY; Sugar Hill Brewing Co., St. Paul, VA; Taylor Books, Charleston WV; Coffeetree Books, Morehead, KY; 123 Pleasant Street, Morgantown WV; Apollo Pizza, Richmond, KY, with Ronni Lundy; UNC-Asheville; Mercantile Library, Cincinnati OH.; Brier Books, Lexington KY.; Big Sandy Community & Technical College, Prestonsburg KY.; Christ Church, Lexington KY; Appalachian Writers Symposium Berea; Books by the Banks literary festival in Cincinnati; Oxford (MS) Festival of the Book; West Virginia Wesleyan University; Holler Poet series in Lexington; The Morris Book Shop in Lexington; Pages and Pints reading series, Richmond, KY; Highlands Literary Festival, Radford University; Thomas More University; Appalshop’s Seedtime on the Cumberland festival; It’s Good To Be Young in the Mountains conference, Harlan, KY.
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