"THE MONSTER"

For Clara Marsh, a poet whose last collection was met with brutal indifference, the monster is the blinking cursor on an empty screen. It is a relentless, digital metronome, counting down the seconds of her perceived relevance and mocking her desperate search for the perfect, unassailable word.

For Marcus Thorne, a sculptor whose reputation hinges on his next monumental work, the monster is a towering block of unyielding, black marble. It contains infinite, breathtaking possibilities—but als...