Lucy Bledsoe read from Biting the Apple, a powerful novel about a moment, simultaneously one of grace and betrayal, that leads to the unraveling of three people. Darieck Scott entranced us with a scene from Hex: A Novel of Love Spells, about guilt as aphrodisiac and the magical sigils on Azeril's flesh. Alvin Orloff gave us a fine preview of his forthcoming novel that may or may not be called Frenemy, about a badly aging queer hipster suing his landlord. Katayoon Zandvakili told us some of the fascinating story of her marriage to a man who was pretending to be a surgeon. Goodloe Byron waltzed through absurdist vignettes from his picaresque opus The Abstract.