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

In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

An older woman and self-proclaimed loner is forced to engage with others at her accounting job after she is pushed to socialize by her managers. This, as well as her invasive obsession with the young woman next door, leads her into uncomfortable self-reflection and new experiences.

An overly sympathetic woman never allows herself room for hatred— even as her suffocating boss stalks and harasses her.

A depressed, middle-aged San Francisco writer gives his artificially intelligent alter ego permission to assume his personality in public, resulting in an unexpected boom for the washed-up man.

A middle-aged man attends a self-help seminar in hopes of finding the resolve to confront his quirky and off-putting sister and ask her to move out of his home.

A woman dealing with conflicting emotions resorts to deliberately putting herself in danger to learn to value the life she's been given - but these unorthodox methods leave her more desperate than ever.

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.

In his new job as an English professor, Tarzan finds himself annoyed by his students, hounded by his department chair, and alienated by the world around him, with solace only from his girlfriend Jane. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

When her parents announce plans to see family in Missouri, a teenage girl from the suburbs of Chicago dreads the visit with her cousins, who called her an 'Oreo' the last time she saw them. When the girl arrives, what she finds surprises her.