When a mysterious new member joins a group of struggling authors, the friends discover that they may have a supernatural creature in their midst, who can grant a single author success above all the others—but at a cost.

A young writer attends a writer's workshop where she begins a relationship with an author whose books she loves. But after they move in together, she finds that his life begins to suffuse every aspect of hers.

Writing a foreword, a man reflects on his relationship to a writer and said writer's wife.

Searching for a muse to inspire a novel he is attempting to write, an author in San Francisco finds his passions ignited by something much more sinister.

Having sacrificed his dream job to financially support his marriage, a man realizes there is sexual tension between his wife and his friend. Ultimately, he makes tough decisions about both his friendship and his marriage.

A couple with a rocky marriage argues over fetching a newspaper, which becomes a catalyst for their impending divorce. When they unexpectedly reunite over a decade later, the former couple witnesses how their lives disparately transformed thanks to the fateful newspaper.

An accomplished but ineffectual columnist searches for fulfillment, until a death in the family causes him to question the family he took for granted.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A writer grapples with the suicide of her longtime friend and mentor.