Shelley Read Brings 'Go as a River' to Edwards Tonight as CMC Tour Opens
Colorado Mountain College opens its eight-stop Common Reader tour at its Vail Valley campus in Edwards tonight, Oct. 19, with a free talk and book signing by the fifth-generation Colorado author.
The fall author tour for Colorado Mountain College's 2026 Common Reader opens in Eagle County tonight. Shelley Read will discuss her novel 'Go as a River' and sign books from 6 to 8 p.m. today, Monday, Oct. 19, at CMC Vail Valley at Edwards, according to the college. The Edwards appearance is the first of eight free public talks Read will give across the college district between Oct. 19 and Oct. 27, and it is the only stop in Eagle County. The talks are free, though the college asks attendees to register in advance.
The college chose Read's debut novel as this year's Common Reader selection in a year when Colorado is marking the 150th anniversary of statehood. The Common Reader program picks one book each year, distributes it free across the communities the college serves, and then brings the author to its campuses for discussions. This year's book follows Victoria Nash, who is 17 when the story opens in mid-20th-century rural Colorado, where she grows up on a peach farm. Her home ground is Iola, a small Gunnison River community that disappeared in the 1960s when Blue Mesa Reservoir was created.
The character Victoria Nash came to me in the context of wondering what would have been possible for a young woman in rural Colorado in 1948.
Shelley Read, in Colorado Mountain College's Oct. 15 account of the tour
A fifth-generation Coloradan
Read is a fifth-generation Coloradan who spent nearly 30 years on the faculty of Western Colorado University in Gunnison, where her subjects included writing, literature, environmental studies and honors courses, according to both the college and her publisher, Penguin Random House. The college account says Victoria grew partly from Read's own family, especially its women: her ancestors homesteaded in Colorado, and she heard their stories directly from her great-grandparents and grandparents.
I just know and feel and respect rural Colorado people.
Shelley Read, in Colorado Mountain College's Oct. 15 account of the tour
The drowned town at the center of the book
Placing Victoria in Iola tied the novel's threads together, the college account says. Read describes the reservoir country as a place of layered displacement, from the removal of Ute people from western Colorado to the ranchers, farmers and communities later moved for water projects, and she notes that drought and falling water levels have exposed remnants of places altered by those projects. The novel's sales have passed 1 million copies around the world, with translations in 34 languages, according to the college, and a film version is in the works, with Eliza Hittman writing the screenplay and Mazur Kaplan Company producing.
Free copies, a contest, and the rest of the tour
Readers who have not yet picked up the book still can. The college said complimentary copies are available while supplies last at its 11 campuses, and its Common Reader page says copies have been available to students and community members at campus front desks and libraries since June 1. This year's program also includes an art and creative writing contest on the theme 'Go as a River: What the Current Carries,' built around questions of place, loss, identity and belonging in a changing world.
After Edwards, the tour moves quickly. Read speaks twice on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the Scout Hut in Salida at midday and at CMC Leadville in the evening, then in Breckenridge on Oct. 21 and Steamboat Springs on Oct. 22. The final stops are Rifle on Oct. 26, Aspen at midday on Oct. 27, and Spring Valley at Glenwood Springs that evening. For Eagle County readers, though, tonight's Edwards talk is the hometown date: a Colorado story about a flooded valley, told by the author a short drive from the Eagle River.
