An unassuming attendee of Gertrude Stein’s famed Paris salon reflects on his time as a writer. Twenty years after Stein’s passing, he realizes the profound truths of her life, art, and legacy.

A boy desires a special magazine.

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 poet attempts to sleep comfortably at a friend’s house without disturbing his hosts.

Drawing from Almeda Roth’s 1873 poetry collection Offerings and Roth’s town newspaper the Vidette, an unnamed researcher guides the reader through a rich biography of Roth’s personal affairs, love interest, and ultimate death.

A man thinks back on his life as he prepares for death and wonders if his existence was meaningful, or simply fleeting.

A writer accuses his sister's son of telepathically stealing his manuscripts; when his claim is met with disbelief, he cleverly engineers the death of his young nephew.

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

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

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,