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

A college student's somewhat pathetic alcoholic uncle regales him and his mother with a tale of how a famous skywriter meddled with his life and love.

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.

Alyse, a part-time writer, is unable to excavate any interest from her seemingly boring family, utterly unaware of the deeply complex and exciting adventures her brother, sister, and aunt often have

A dying human author travels to a foreign planet to die, but meets a young girl who he begins to teach the art and beauty of storytelling.

Despite her friction with other teachers, a young student shows exceptional talent in the writing field and is encouraged by her favorite teacher to continue to kindle that passion and become a writer someday.

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

A twenty-two-year-old male tutor gives various women feedback on their writing in letter form. When he quits his job, he visits one of his former correspondents for lunch at her apartment.

Passive and easily satisfied, Roger spends his days managing his secondhand bookstore The Pleiade. He worships modernist classics without fully reading them, he’s gregarious but seldom invited to dinner, and he types novel after novel methodically, but all are rejected. He passes seasons of love and loss in unfailing, impassive routine.

A writer is shocked when his retired father begins to publish stories. The man struggles to admit that his father is a talented writer, especially since the stories are based on events from the man's childhood.