I just love the literary community that’s been built around the High Plains Book Awards over these last years, and it was a real treat to be a finalist for the 2020 awards alongside friends Pam Houston and Jory Mickelson. It’s even better to find out Pam’s Deep Creek took home the award in creative nonfiction, Jory’s Wilderness//Kingdom landed the poetry prize, and Fall Back Down When I Die is the 2020 High Plains Book Award winner in fiction!
Here’s what 2020 judge Sue Henderson, author of the “achingly magnificent” The Flicker of Old Dreams, had to say about Fall Back Down When I Die:
This is just a magnificent work of art on every level. I read it twice—first, gripped by the story, which is both intimate and sweeping. Then I went right back to the beginning to read it slower and marvel over the rugged poetry.
Wilkins takes the reader deep into the Bull Mountains, where tensions surrounding land rights and hunting regulations turn violent. We meet unforgettable characters—a man who doesn’t feel ready to care for a child, a teacher who doesn’t trust the child is in good hands, and a group of disaffected traditionalists who feel squeezed out of the only life they know. Every character is tangled up in relationships with each other that go back generations, all tied to the memories and the history of this land. The result is a story that surprises with compassion, mercy and sacrifice.
-Sue Henderson, Citation for the 2020 High Plains Book Award
joewilkins.org 