Community members are invited to join Colorado Mountain College students, faculty and staff when Bryce Andrews, author of “Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West,” gives free public talks at seven CMC campuses in October.

Andrews’ memoir, chosen as this fall’s CMC Common Reader book, focuses on the author’s time on a Montana ranch building fences, tending cattle and hunting down a pack of wolves attacking his herd. It explores the moral dilemmas created when ranching and wildlife collide in the modern-day American West.

Winner of a 2014 Barnes & Noble Discover Award, the book is available at local libraries and bookstores. The college is also sponsoring an art and creative writing contest, with cash prizes for six winners. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 20.

Andrews will visit seven CMC locations — Spring Valley, Rifle, Edwards, Leadville, Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs and Aspen — and will also give presentations for CMC students in Spring Valley, Leadville and Steamboat Springs.

For more information, visit coloradomtn.edu/commonreader or call 800-621-8559.