The members of the Crossroads Writers Club hail from seven different countries, including Colombia, France, and the Netherlands. Writing in English, they meet once a month somewhere in Fontainebleau Forest--a region dotted with towns, small villages, and hamlets--to share their works in progress. In their debut publication, you'll meet a necromancer who crashes a forest picnic, a refugee from Kosovo who bewitches a London widower, an elegant wife confined to a Colombian coffee plantation, a Japanese salaryman at a turning point. You'll travel to the island of Madagascar; the Italian countryside; a Corsican village; a Welsh mining town. Some stories are based on real events, and some are pure flights of the imagination. Their geographic scope and cultural diversity are a tribute to Crossroads, the club's parent organization, a nonprofit association that brings together an international assortment of English speakers who just happen to live in or near Fontainebleau, France.

Authors: Nysha Concannon, Sian Cronin, Christine Albertini Drew, Constance Lindgreen, Vali Marlow, Kim Pellet, Daniel Pouget, Kelly Bostrom Robic, Yvonne van Roekel, Sara Tucker, Kirby Williams. Illustrations by Peter Bellchambers.