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 poet dissects her relationship to a forensic scientist named Eddy.

A scientist notes the discovery of a new chemical compound with physics-defying capabilities.

When a scientist discovers science-based information that negates his world's established creation myth and belief system, he sends the world into chaos, with some zealots clinging desperately to their dogma, while others attempt to embrace the unknown future.

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

An academic prides herself in her powers of observation, but finds herself unable to change the fate of those suffering around her—whether it be a microscopic rotifer in biology lab, a long-dead boy whose letters she reads from the 1800s, or her twenty-one-year old cousin.

A neuroscientist on the brink of a scientific breakthrough dies in a car crash. Yet her consciousness is still alive.

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.

A writing professor becomes unnerved by a talented student and acts cruelly towards him out of insecurity — but ends up even more hurt than before.