September 2025: Shelley Read’s Go As A River

About this sermon

Sometimes you read a book that just wrecks you in the best possible way — the kind of story that stays in your bones long after you close the last page. Go As A River is exactly that kind of book. It is a lyrical and haunting coming-of-age novel set amid the rugged beauty of Colorado’s Western Slope in the late 1940s through the mid-20th century. Inspired by true events—the disappearance of the small ranching town of Iola beneath the Blue Mesa Reservoir—Shelley Read crafts a story that is both intimately personal and richly symbolic. Shelley is a fifth-generation Coloradan who has spent her life in the Gunnison Valley, and you can feel that connection to the land in every line of this novel. Shelley has spent decades teaching writing and literature, but with this debut (now an international bestseller) she’s given us something timeless — a story about love, loss, and the courage to keep moving forward like the river itself. Thought-provoking Quotes: ★ “I deeply value the long journey to becoming ourselves, especially as women, and the complexities of that journey.” – Shelley Read ★ “I think,so often, young people are boxed in and alienated from the very beginning to who their true self is and what their true journey is. And, I thought [as a teacher] that I could save these young people a whole lot of pain going forward and just help them discover who they are now, to follow their most authentic selves.” – Shelley Read ★ “I'm not so sure that I set out to actively reclaim my creativity and my writerly self as much as Victoria Nash, bless her heart, the main character of my novel. She came to me in whatever magical way. I didn't go seeking her. She came and claimed me in some way and she is who turned me back to my writing life because she came to me with such power and such insistence that I had to write her story whether I had time to do it or not. Little by little by little I started accepting this journey of coming back to my writerly self.” – Shelley Read ★ “I think the more generous we can be as writers with process and allowing the story to unfold over time, in the most authentic way, then we really get into the story that we really need to be telling.” – Shelley Read ★ I had to turn the story and the journey in this novel toward hope. I had to. Because ultimately, this deep well of strength and resilience and this ability to bear the seemingly unbearable that all of us carry. Hope is what's going to drive us to rise each time, and to continue to rise.” – Shelley Read Resources Mentioned in This Episode: ➢ Go as a River: A Novel by Shelley Read - https://amzn.to/4lIly0Y ➢ Film Rights to Shelley Read’s Global Bestseller ‘Go as a River’ Head to Fifth Season, Mazur Kaplan - https://variety.com/2023/film/news/go-as-a-river-movie-shelley-read-book-1235667430 ➢ The River’s Daughter by Bridget Crocker - https://amzn.to/3Jy78mE ➢ Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker – https://amzn.to/4n3WpPy Guest’s Links: Website - https://www.shelleyread.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shelleyread.author Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/shelley.read.50 Connect with Jen! Jen’s Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is presented by Audacy.