From his home in the Texas Panhandle, John R. Erickson, rancher and author of the bestselling "Hank the Cowdog" series, saw firsthand the raw power of two megafires that swept across the high plains in 2006 and 2017. Evocatively chronicled, and now newly updated with information from the 2024 Smokehouse Creek Fire, Erickson tells what it is like trying to stop the unstoppable. "Bad Smoke, Good Smoke" gives voice to the particular pains that ranchers must face in our era of climate change and ever more powerful natural disasters. Instructor Katie Cortese is an author, teaches in the creative writing program at Texas Tech, and is the faculty director for Texas Tech University Press.