Doug Dorst teaches writing at Texas State University-San Marcos. He is the author of the PEN/Hemingway-nominated novel ALIVE IN NECROPOLIS and the collection THE SURF GURU. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Epoch, and elsewhere. Dorst is also a three-time "Jeopardy!" champion.
A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger. And so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.