Stella Gibbons experience of school, Gibbons found university exhilarating and made numerous friendships, particularly with Ida Graves, an aspiring poet who, although on a different course, attended some of the same lectures. The two shared a love of literature and a taste for subversive humour. Graves lived until 1999, and recalled in an interview late in life that many of the jokes they shared found their way into "Cold Comfort Farm", as did some of their common acquaintances. Soon after Gibbons began the course she contributed a poem, "The Marshes of My Soul", to the December 1921 issue of "University College Magazine".
Mavis Cheek Arnold Bennett, Stella Gibbons, William Boyd and Beryl Bainbridge as "literary heroes". For "A Good Read" on the BBC Radio 4 programme of that name broadcast on 7 June 2011 she chose "Micka" by Frances Kay. Her own novel, "Janice Gentle Gets Sexy", was chosen for A Good Read in its year of paperback publication, 1994. "The Sex Life of My Aunt" (2002), her tenth novel, draws liberally on her own background and childhood, including something of her family uneasy relationships. There are strong autobiographical elements also in her twelfth novel, "Yesterday's Houses" (2006), about the beginning of a woman's