Joe Wilkins, associate professor of English at Linfield College, is a 2017 Oregon Book Awards finalist for a collection of his poetry, “When We Were Birds.”
Now in its 30th year, The Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships honor the state’s finest accomplishments by writers in the state who work in poetry, fiction, drama, literary nonfiction and literature for young readers. Winners will be announced Monday, April 24.
Wilkins, who teaches creative writing, American literature and inquiry seminar courses at Linfield, is a finalist for this year’s Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Previously, he earned a High Plains Book Award for his poetry collection “Notes from the Journey Westward.” His memoir, “The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing up on the Big Dry,” won the 2014 GLCA New Writers Award and was a finalist for the 2013 Orion Book Award, and “Killing the Murnion Dogs,” his first published collection of poetry, was a finalist for the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize.
Wilkins also co-edited the anthology “The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre,” which examines the style and boundaries of creative nonfiction, and co-wrote the recent textbook “Environmental and Nature Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology.”
Wilkins’ poems, essays and stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, Utne Reader, Ecotone, The Sun, Orion and Slate, among other magazines and literary journals. He has also been a National Magazine Award finalist and PEN Center USA Award finalist. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Idaho and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Gonzaga University.
Barbara Drake, professor emerita of English at Linfield College, was a finalist for a 2016 Oregon Book Award. She competed for the Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction for her memoir, “Morning Light: Wildflowers, Night Skies, and Other Ordinary Joys of Oregon Country Life.”
