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

A man plays bridge on his night off with a few distant friends. Their conversation inspires a tipsy, failed attempt to steal from a drugstore. In this 20th century jail, his excitement turns to anger and doom as he reflects on his crumbling marriage, kids, and childhood.

A man wholeheartedly agrees with a columnist in a recent paper about creating an amendment to abolish same-sex marriage, however, he takes it one step further: he suggest they also abolish "samish-sex" relationships, wherein overly feminine men date overly masculine women.

Al Roosten, a local business owner always second-best to his competitor, Larry Donfrey, contemplates returning to an anti-drug charity event to ensure that Donfrey is able to help his disabled daughter.

In New York, a young woman befriends her quirky roommate, who is trying to make it as an actor. While she watches her roommate attempt to accomplish her dreams, the woman reflects on her own life’s direction and what possibilities (or lack of) lie ahead.

A couple, an older man with a young wife, traverse a typical day, dealing with their respective mental health issues atop long-standing marital tensions.

When a teenage girl in 1940s New York City finally conjures up the urge to demand some money that a friend owes her, she’s treated to an afternoon of conversation unlike anything she’s ever heard before.

When a serial writer decides that he can’t take more of his monotonous life, he destroys his copywriter and leaves his domestic prison to protest the rise of the machines.

After his longtime boyfriend kicks him out, a promising young illustrator moves to Arizona where he reflects on everything he’s had to do for money. As he tries to capture these memories in his paintings, he begins to understand all that he’s lost as well as what might be possible.

A college student's somewhat pathetic alcoholic uncle regales him and his mother with a tale of how a famous skywriter meddled with his life and love.