Desperate, NC is a collaboratively-written mosaic novella centered around the fictional town of Desperate, located in the backwoods of North Carolina. Told through a collection of found documents and tied together as a futuristic museum tour, this unconventional blend of multi-genre storytelling and historical speculative fiction gradually unravels the mystery of what happened to the immortal residents of this mysterious and isolated North Carolina settlement.

The project was a collaboration between Cadwell Turnbull and his MFA class of contributing authors: Jendayi Brooks-Flemister, Isaac Green, Michael Ivory, Misha Lazzara, Alexander Lopez, Catey Maple, Elyse Rudemiller, Kayla Rutledge, Ali Saleh, Jesse Wang, and Paul Watts-Offret.