Congratulations to Linfield University’s Joe Wilkins, whose novel “The Entire Sky” has been named the winner of the 2025 High Plains International Book Award in Fiction.
Published by Little, Brown and Company in July 2024, “The Entire Sky” follows teenage runaway Justin, rancher Rene Bouchard and Rene’s daughter, Lianne, as their intersecting lives unfold against the rugged landscape of rural Montana. Praised for its lyricism and vivid sense of place, the novel explores loss, redemption and the fragile ties that bind families together.
This latest honor joins a growing list of accolades for Wilkins’s second novel, which was also long-listed for the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and named winner of the 2024 Montana Book Award.
Having taught at Linfield since 2013, Wilkins is currently a professor of creative writing and environmental studies, as well as chair of the Department of English. He was named the recipient of the Oregon Literary Career Fellowship in 2024. In addition to “The Entire Sky,” Wilkins is also author of his the acclaimed novel “Fall Back Down When I Die,” a memoir “The Mountain and the Fathers” and four collections of poetry. His work has been translated in French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Polish.
The Entire Sky is available now from Little, Brown and Company.
