Joe Wilkins is the author of the novels The Entire Sky and Fall Back Down When I Die, both of which have garnered wide critical acclaim. He is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, winner of the GLCA New Writers Award, and five collections of poetry, including Pastoral, 1994; Thieve; and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Born and raised on a sheep and hay ranch north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana, Joe lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University.