March 21, 2023, 7PM at Back of Beyond Books: Author reading and signing with Shelley Read and her debut novel — Go as a River

March 21, 2023 7:00 PM

Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses.

Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring.

Inspired by true events surrounding the destruction of the town of Iola in the 1960s, Go as a River is a story of deeply held love in the face of hardship and loss, but also of finding courage, resilience, friendship, and, finally, home—where least expected. This stunning debut explores what it means to lead your life as if it were a river—gathering and flowing, finding a way forward even when a river is dammed.

Buy Go as a River

Shelley Read is a fifth-generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope. She was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honors, and was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and a support program for first-generation and at-risk students. Shelley holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, and has written for the Denver Post and a variety of publications.

For the past 2 months, I've spent mornings enjoying my breakfast and coffee with The Artist's Path in 500 Walks, a 400 page smaller coffee-table book edited by Kath Stathers.  As the title says, "Follow the inspired footsteps of William Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Otis Redding, and more"... offering actual walks or treks through cities, mountains, and coastlines that actual composers, authors, painters and more travelled. Full and half-page photographs and illustrated maps with mileage accompany paragraphs about each person, such as Beethoven's favorite walk in Austria, where he stayed to study with Mozart and unwind in the forest while struggling with increasing deafness.  On the next page is the Walk of Peace in Slovenia, setting for Hemingway's Farewell to Arms featuring a trail near the Julian Alps that follows the turquoise Soca River. This book is an absolute dream for the Wikipedia freak - you'll want to play the music by the composers you read about, read excerpts from famous writing, and research each location as you turn the pages!  There is so much to learn from this book, a beautiful reminder of the inspiring lives and places that surround us.

🎨 Review by Julia 🎨

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“I’d slipped into a vein of hozho somehow. There was no end to the beauty. It seemed to attract itself, and I got to be the witness. The goodness of people wasn’t so shocking anymore – it was natural. What was shocking, however, was the juxtaposition of this goodness to all the suffering that surrounded it.” 
"Walking to Listen" by Andrew Forsthoefel

Andrew shares his remarkable journey of walking the United States from east to west using his authentic language of humor and humility encompassed through an innocent lens of love. His story is pure proof of the law of attraction and if you know, you know. Andrew Forsthoefel takes a walk through each state from Pennsylvania to California with not only the help of Walt Whitmans (Leaves of Grass), Rainer Maria Rilkes (Letters to a Young Poet) and Kahlil Gibrans (The Prophet) famous words of hope and inspiration but with the intention of trusting in the good of humanity. I’m a sucker for reading a story along a timeline, following a direction, in search of finding purpose, but maybe, just maybe, the plot twist here is, nothing's ever linear and/or as expected. 

🌲 Review by Amber 🌲

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