Shelley Walchak

Shelley Walchak is a librarian by trade and an angler at heart. In 2013, she fly-fished a river a week, blogged and wrote essays, hoping to inspire others. In 2014, she wrote a book about the adventure called 52 Rivers: A Woman's Fly Fishing Journey.

Fly fishing was a late life discovery for Walchak, but she intends to make up as much time as possible. Walchak was inspired to take her 52 Rivers journey after helping to organize a national library conference that embraced risk and reward. The conference so moved her that she had to take her own risk and give up her job at the Colorado State Library and go fishing for a year...anddid she ever reap rewards! She hopes her readers will do the same.

Walchak is delighted to report that 52 Rivers: A Woman’s Fly Fishing Journey, has won the gold medal in Regional Non Fiction at the 2015 IPPY Book Awards. "Taking two years to research and write 52 Rivers was a dream come true. After publishing the book, I decided to try for an IPPY award and when the results came through that I had won a gold medal, I realized that my work was accepted and honored by others as well. It doesn't get much better than that."