In 2018-19, Iris Graville served as Washington State Ferries' (WSF) first Writer-in-Residence. Sailing in the Salish Sea's San Juan Archipelago, she wrote about how climate change threatens its interwoven lattice of beauty, wildness, fragility, and relationship. Writer in a Life Vest leads readers to ask questions and find hope.
Graville writes through prose and poetry specifically of the Southern Resident orcas of the Salish Sea of Washington and British Columbia, but more generally of the climate crisis and how our actions today will affect all beings well into the future. Writer in a Life Vest is filled with wonder, tolerance, and sometimes brutal honesty, and peopled with the likes of Sylvia Earl, Greta Thunberg, and Rachel Carson. It stands as an ode on a ferry; a love song for the Salish Sea and all its inhabitants; and a carefully researched, heartfelt, deftly-written, and convincing plea to change what we can while we can.
—Gene Helfman, author of Beyond the Human Realm
