Joe Wilkins is the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers; two collections of poems, Notes from the Journey Westward, winner of the 17th Annual White Pine Press Prize in Poetry, and Killing the Murnion Dogs; and a chapbook, Ragged Point Road. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in the Georgia Review, the Southern Review, the Missouri Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Ecotone, Beloit Poetry Journal, the Sun, Orion, and Slate, among other magazines and literary journals. His work has won numerous awards and honors, including appearances in Best American Magazine Writing 2010 and Best New Poets 2006 and 2009, notable mention in Best American Essays 2008, special mention in Pushcart Prize XXXIV: Best of the Small Presses, the Obsidian Prize for Nonfiction, the Obsidian Prize for Fiction, the Ellen Meloy Fund for Desert Writers, Memoir (and)‘s Grand Prize for Memoir, Boulevard‘s Emerging Poets Contest, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. A 2010 National Magazine Award finalist and PEN Center USA Award finalist, he is the recipient of the Richard J. Margolis Award of Blue Mountain Center, which goes to “a promising new journalist or essayist whose work combines warmth, humor, wisdom and concern with social justice.” He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in Iowa, where he teaches writing at Waldorf College.
