Joe Wilkins (Of Pastoral, Tender Models of Masculinity, and the Sonnet-Haunted Prairies)

Purchase: Pastoral, 1994 (River River Books, 2025)

Read: "Limp" at The Missouri Review

Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon. He is the author of the novels Fall Back Down When I Die (2019) and The Entire Sky (2024), both published by Little, Brown and Company. A finalist for the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Fall Back Down When I Die won the High Plains Book Award. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and The Fathers, and four previous collections of poetry. Wilkins directs the creative writing program at Linfield University and is a member of the low-residency MFA faculty at Eastern Oregon University.

Reading Recommendations:

James Dickey, Deliverance

Maurice Manning

Louise Erdrich

James Wright

Gary Soto

Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology

Maya Jewell Zeller

Atsuro Riley