A man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

When a writer and her old writing professor reconvene in a Mexican restaurant one final time before the professor's death, they experience a night of unwanted encounters and unnecessary criticism that leaves the writer with a bitter taste in her mouth.

A young couple obsessed with syntax sets off to meet their favorite author.

A writer summers with his mistress and part of her family. The group runs into one of his former students, and they all smoke together.

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

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 Boston-based publicist believes that he has found the next hit novel and signs a deal with the author. Later, he feels betrayed upon learning that the true author of the book is less than human.

In a small town, a resident watches as the people and place change. He recounts eight seemingly disparate stories, but the town connects them all.

A middle-aged writer finds a suicide note and a copperhead in his garden, beginning a series of linked events that cause him to question reality and prompt his doctor to send him to Florida for rest and rehabilitation.

A man writes a letter to his close friend updating him on his new wife, or lack thereof.