Sam, a shy but creative mouse who lives in a library, decides to write and illustrate his own stories which he places on the shelves with the other library books but when children find the tales, they all want to meet the author.

Stephen King reflects on how his writing has helped him through difficult times and describes various aspects of the art of writing.

"Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written - let alone published - anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast...

New York book editor Maris Matherly-Reed knows a best seller when she sees one - even if it is just a tantalizing partial manuscript submitted by a writer identified only as P.M.E., with the return address of an obscure island off the Georgia coast. Maris is intrigued enough to search for him. Her trip to Georgia to meet the mysterious author takes her to an eerie, ruined cotton plantation, where Maris finds Parker Evans, a man confined to a wheelchair...

Author/illustrator Nick Bruel tries to explain to the reader how to write a story, but Bad Kitty is not at all happy about the plot, which has her going on a turnip diet to lose weight. Includes a recipe for roasted turnips.

The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are thirty-five thousand feet about the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent forty years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop. From this gripping opening, Meg Wolitzer flashes back to 1950s Smith...

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life--and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, immersed themselves in the series when they were kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving. Her sister has grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. Now that they're going to college, Wren has told her she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely...

Told in a story-within-a-story fashion, the reader learns about the mysterious death of one sister from her surviving sister.

"A story about a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even love--think Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine meets Love, Actually "Everybody lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth?" This is the question that Julian Jessop, an eccentric, seventy-nine-year-old artist, poses within a pale green exercise book that he labels The Authenticity Project, before leaving it...

Aging science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. The result is murderously funny satire as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.