Story Spotlight

Breathing New Life Into Old Stories

In his beautiful braided essay “Last Boat to the San Juan Islands,” Andrew Jazprose Hill achieves the impossible: He makes me miss the ferry.

Reading about his ride with a dying woman and her family was, for me, a sensory experience: I could taste the salt-licked wind, the desperation of watching your cell service decline, the joy and terror of leaving solid ground with a boatful of strangers. Remember strangers? Chance encounters that weren’t planned or even necessarily desired, spontaneous conversations and…