Robert Gipe won the 2015 Weatherford Award for outstanding Appalachian novel for his first novel Trampoline. His second and third novels, Weedeater and Pop, were Weatherford finalists. In 2021, the trilogy won the Judy Gaines Young Book Award for outstanding achievement in Appalachian writing. Gipe is founding producer of the Higher Ground community performance series, and has served as a script consultant for the Hulu series Dopesick. Gipe resides in Harlan County, Kentucky. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee.​