A creative writing teacher sits through a conference with one his favorite students. He takes us on a journey through the characters in the story, and in his life.

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 man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A woman finally forms a relationship with her half-sister, but becomes concerned for her well-being; the half-sister and her husband each tell the woman a different story.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

A man looks back on his father-in-law's life after he passes away, thinking of the many jobs he held and his military service.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

When a middle-aged man’s personality literally splits in two, he gives his responsibilities to his new half. But when he is ready to return to his life, the other half refuses.