A Goodreads Choice Award Nominee and Amazon Editor's Pick Best Debut 2023, Shelley Read's debut novel, Go as a River, is an international bestseller that is being translated into over thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan in partnership with Fifth Season. She was a Senior Lecturer in English and Environmental Studies at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and the PRIME program for 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 and is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal. Shelley is a fifth-generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope.