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

A writer accuses his sister's son of telepathically stealing his manuscripts; when his claim is met with disbelief, he cleverly engineers the death of his young nephew.

A writer arrives at an eerie residency near a lake where she camped with her Girl Scout troop as a child. The writer revisits a past trauma at the hands of the other Girl Scouts and comes to conclusions about what it is to reside in one's own mind. Along the way, she navigates a mysterious illness, a fellow resident whose identity and words are impossible to remember, and the appearance of a severed rabbit on her doorstep.

A writer receiving feedback from a professor on their drafts is sure that the person on the other end is a man. They wrestle with their own hidden identities until the end of their literary relationship comes with an unexpected revelation.

In a New York City where people can access personal information about one another instantly via a special technology, an artist-turned-substitute teacher finds himself in a romantic relationship with a woman who wants to communicate in the traditional sense.

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

After returning the I CAN SPEAK mask for babies, which plays and simulates sophisticated speech, a woman receives a lengthy letter from an overly-enthusiastic sales rep about the mask's ability to make babies more intelligent and loveable.

An author discusses with his friend the best way to write about a poor aunt. Their words take on a new power when he manifests a literal poor aunt on his back and draws in spectators.

In the depths of his mind, a writer tries to uncover the autonomous, nefarious motivations of his own characters.

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.