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In her 2014 novel Boy, Snow, Bird, author Helen Oyeyemi masterfully melds astute observations about contemporary life with fantastical elements plucked from the story of Snow White. Oyeyemi’s latest collection of short stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, similarly blends folk tales and detailed descriptions of relationships, but these stories take place all around the world. From the opening story, “Books and Roses,” which follows an orphan raised in a Catalonian church as she searches for a lock to match the key she wears around her neck, to “Presence,” a look at what happens when a married psychoanalyst imagines living with the 12-year-old son she never had, Oyeyemi blends the real and the fantastic in stirring passages. Even Cambridge University’s secret “Homely Wench Society” is shown in the author’s exacting prose. She discusses her process and the way she blends old stories with new ones when she takes a seat at Busboys and Poets’ Takoma location. Helen Oyeyemi reads at 6:30 p.m. at Busboys and Poets Takoma, 235 Carroll St. NW. Free. (202) 726-0856. busboysandpoets.com.