A writing critic reviews the construction of Charles Chesnutt’s stories and how to write surfiction.

A writer receiving feedback from a professor on their drafts is sure that the person on the other end is a man. They wrestle with their own hidden identities until the end of their literary relationship comes with an unexpected revelation.

After a man's long term girlfriend confesses her submissive sexual fantasies, the couple goes to see a dominatrix together. The man becomes worried as his sexual incompatibility with his wife becomes evident.

A young gay man attends the wedding of an ex-hookup, and suspects the ex has a fetish for Koreans.

In the depths of his mind, a writer tries to uncover the autonomous, nefarious motivations of his own characters.

A catalog of the tools different alien species use to read and write, leading to fundamental questions about what it means to make patterns of knowledge against the noise of the universe.

In California, a young woman reflects on her relationship to her father while working on a novel. Through reading her father’s novel, she understands their relationship through his eyes.

When 17-year-old girl becomes pregnant, she has no choice but to hide her pregnancy. As she grows older, she realizes she must unburden herself of the secret, or hide it for the rest of her life.

A professor tries to convey to his students the magnitude of the most perfectly crafted poem ever written in the English language: “Lycidas.”

A writer uses his relationship with a mysterious woman as inspiration for his magical realism story. But, things go awry when he begins to question their compatibility.