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Summer Stories 2020: Mount St. Helens

Now in its seventh year, The Spokesman-Review’s short-fiction series, Summer Stories, is bigger than ever with 17 stories running from May to September. This year’s theme is Mount St. Helens in honor of the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Washington’s most famous volcano. Stories will appear Sundays in Today.

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Latest Stories

  • ‘What Rises Beneath’

    By Jess Walter

    It was quiet for 140 years. Then, in March, the mountain began to rumble: earthquakes, bursts of steam, blue flame, ash clouds that sparked 2-mile bolts of lightning. All spring, the volcano seethed, spewed and shuddered, magma bubbling up its throat and pushing the north flank out …

  • ‘Ashes to Ashes’

    By Julia Sweeney

    It was a Sunday morning in May, and Ben had just left Angela’s dilapidated Seattle apartment building in good spirits. After a year of flirting, yearning and maneuvering (and with the aid of some Jack Daniels added to the espresso they sipped while playing chess at Last …

  • ‘Hope’

    By Dan Gemeinhart

    As a matter of fact, I never wanted to kill my neighbor’s cat. But sometimes things happen, and sometimes one thing leads to another, and sometimes you’re just kind of swept along in a landslide, and then all of a sudden you’re trying to hide a dead …

  • ‘Saint Helen and the Spokanites’

    By Samuel Ligon

    Paw Paw said it was just hippies on the mountain got smote. And fornicators. “Nary a Christian among them,” he said. “What about my Grandpa Murphy’s camp,” I said. “Closed,” Paw-Paw said. “And they was Catholic anyway – not Christian.” “Catholic is Christian,” my mother said. “And …

  • ‘Bandits’

    By Sharma Shields

    When Mom fell in love with the man of ash, we tried, at first, to be happy for her. We vacuumed, we mopped, we sang. We swept up the ashes without complaint. Even then the thin film of him settled beneath our fingernails or whirled up at …

  • ‘Red Zone’

    By Ben Goldfarb

    Hank went down to the dock before dawn. Dirty spring snow lingered along the cobble path that led from cabin to lakeshore. The mist hung so thick that he heard the canoe before he saw it, the rhythmic clunk of aluminum on wood. He flipped the bowline …

  • “The Department of Long-term Catastrophes”

    By Eli Francovich

    Hugh Hubert, the proprietor, founder and sole employee of Hubert & Sons Long-term Catastrophes, sat at a grimy table and tried not to smile. He asked, “Have you considered volcano insurance?” The client, a spindly, dark-haired man named Jake, shook his head. The two men sat in …

  • ‘Volcanic’

    By Deb Caletti

    We’ve heard rumblings for two months, news of little earthquakes, hundreds of them. Explosions of steam, dark ash covering snow-clad summits. But let’s be honest. I’ve heard rumblings for years. I know the signs: Shivering teacups as a hand smacks a table. Explosions of steam you can …

  • “My Father’s Ashes”

    Jamie Ford

    My brother tells me that as a baby, on the day I said my first word, my father’s voice was already hoarse from yelling at my mother. When I took my first steps as a toddler, stumbling into my sister’s open arms, a warm embrace that I’ve tried …

  • “Peebags for Manboy”

    By Matthew Sullivan

    Our big sister Theresa ran away forever on the day that we climbed onto the roof and threw sandwich baggies of hot pee at her boyfriend. Her disappearance wasn’t part of the plan, and the three of us definitely paid for what we did. But if ever …

  • “Fissures”

    By Kris Dinnison

    They were fighting again. They’d come to Seattle because her dad had a meeting, but Becky knew they also came because of the fighting. “I have to go to Seattle for a few days for business,” he’d said last week. “I’ll be back Sunday night.” “Sure. Go. …

  • “Waffle Hut”

    By Neal Thompson

    I saw my twin sister working at the Waffle Hut outside Kid Valley, her hair longer and grayer since we last spoke. That was nine years back, when mom died. An aneurysm seemed to have been waiting and waiting for just the right moment, and then POP! …

  • “Miriam and Clara, 1980”

    By Johanna Stoberock

    Clara was 15, but when Miriam looked at her, she could see her as a baby still. She’d been a fat baby, and Miriam had complained endlessly about what it felt like to carry her – aching back, aching shoulders, constantly wrestling with an animal that wouldn’t …

  • “Mayday”

    By Bruce Holbert

    College hadn’t worked out for Yeller: He had not even learned to drink well. By spring, his second sophomore year at Eastern Washington University – Eastern Washington State College three years before, their mascot, the Savages; little Indians with tomahawks remained in the athletic facility’s brick walkway …

  • “Rumblings”

    By Beth Piatote

    If it weren’t for my daughter’s fever, I might never have talked to Susanna. But we live in a world of rules, and the rule at preschool was no preschool if your kid has a fever. And that’s where it started, this strange set of events: my …

  • “The Thick Darkness”

    By Shawn Vestal

    1 It came as Father said it would come, a shroud over the sun, a night in the day, a black pall upon the earthly coffin of the wicked. 2 At the campground, the Forest Service man came and asked for $16. “Don’t my taxes already run …