A daughter and a mother wonder what the lesson of their story is.

When a talented linguist makes contact with the Martian species and is invited into their inner circle, he uncovers a culturally rich civilization in danger of going extinct.

In Spain during the Francoist dictatorship, a girl's father insists that their family will never speak Spanish again in favor of Basque — a small act of political defiance that slowly changes their lives, until they can never go back.

An old linguistics researcher is ousted from his university position on the frontier of a small island he acculturated. Upon his return home, he begins to believe that he and his life's work are marginal.

A U.S state department official encounters an infatuation on his trip to Eastern Europe that ends in despair.

When a man marries a princess from Cimmeria, a country he believes he imagined into existence, he must come to terms with a culture that recognizes twins as a single person—a primary and their shadow—and the lengths a shadow twin would go to in order to become their own person.

A storyteller captivates a group of tourists at Comic Con with a series of stories within stories about a trickster, sorcerer, and otherworldly queen.

An American writer travels to Sophia where he meets a famous poetess. He falls in love with her and her attitude.

A second-generation Russian immigrant living in contemporary Michigan finds himself caught up in a sad but emotive group of friends when he takes a continuing education course on Intermediate German.

In Bulgaria, two men who met online play submissive and dominant roles in an innitially-consensual sexual encounter that turns into a violent assault.