Gilbert majored in political science at NYU and then headed west to Wyoming to work as a ranch hand after graduation, although she always knew she wanted to be a writer. "Everything I did in my twenties was with an eye toward creating experiences to write about, gathering landscapes and voices," Gilbert said in an interview in Poets & Writers. "I went West for the same reason I worked at a diner and in bars, the same reason I talked to every single person I ever met: just to learn."

After working the ranch for two years, Gilbert returned to New York determined to make it as a writer. She talked her way into a three-day temp job as Bob Guccione’s assistant at Spin, and a few months later sold her first story to Esquire. She sent a copy of the story to Guccione, and was soon working at Spin as well. Her ability to tell the stories of quirky, ordinary heroes soon made her a popular contributor to many notable magazines,

In 1997, Gilbert left journalism and published a collection of short fiction, Pilgrims, which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book, called one of the "Most Intriguing Books of 1997" by Glamour and a finalist for the 1998 PEN/Hemingway Award. While writing a novel was not on Gilbert's to-do list, she published Stern Men, about Maine's lobster fishermen, in 2000. In 2002, she wrote a book about the strange life of Eustace Conway, whom she profiled in GQ in 1998. The Last American Man details Conway's life as a self-proclaimed modern Davy Crockett, and was nominated for a 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

This semester, Gilbert joins the faculty of the Creative Writing Program in UT’s English Department, where she will teach a fiction course for graduate students.

The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, Head of Technical Services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or deeken@aztec.lib.utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Writer in Residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.