After getting dumped by her best friend, a woman stays home alone on Halloween to find solace in the writing of an 18th-century naturalist.

By trampling the grass as he walks the same route over and over to gather clams, an elderly man makes space for a bounty of primroses to flourish, which allows the moths and other pollinators to thrive. When he dies, the roses and moths follow suit.

A naturalist's boyfriend offers to put her elderly dog down, but he finds it difficult as he thinks about his relationship.

In a faraway future, humans have sunk to the bottom of the food chain, with animals leading society and taking charge of the world. Despite animals' hatred for humans, a smart, observant horse becomes interested in a strange human girl, one who doesn't seem to fit in with her group.

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

After a city-slicker moves to the country to build his dream home among nature, he meets a mysterious hunter who keeps his passion going. When the hunter stops visiting, the man becomes disillusioned as he waits for his newfound friend to return.

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

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.

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.

A young poet and a draconologist are the last survivors of a task force sent to seek out a dragon, who they must ask to become the next guardian of their people’s memories for fear of losing them all.