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, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University. He is the author of a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist; 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, winner of a GLCA New Writers Award, and five collections of poetry, including Pastoral, 1994 and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Wilkins's stories, essays, and poems have recently been featured in The Missouri Review, The Sun, Terrain.org, and The Idaho Review. His latest novel, The Entire Sky, tells the intertwining stories of a young runaway who bears a striking resemblance to Kurt Cobain, a grieving sheep rancher, and a woman in the middle of her life not knowing which way to go.