The Horror of Witnessing a Massive Oil Spill Up Close and Personal

The Cosco Busan oil spill in California washed ashore at a marine rescue center, of all places. But nothing could prepare the first responders for the devastation.

We’re honored to be kicking off the new writing year with a special free Narratively Academy seminar next week: a conversation with Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine. In The Keys to Writing Exceptional Creative Nonfiction, students will read three stories from The Final Issue: The Best of Thirty Years of Creative Nonfiction, and Lee will discuss what lessons and takeaways from those stories can be applied to their own nonfiction writing practices. One of the stories is our latest Creative Nonfiction Classic, this riveting piece from Mieke Eerkens. We hope you enjoy reading this story, and if you’d like to join us next week, click through to sign up now.

—Narratively

Illustration by Claire Wyman/Narratively archive

I.

In the beginning, there was only a smell. It was barely perceptible under the scent of California grasses, seaweed, and redwood, but it was there: a faint stink oozing into the atmosphere, which was easily dismissed at the time as a leaky delivery truck o…