Vacui Magia: Stories

Winner of the North Street Book PrizeWorld Fantasy Award Finalist L. S. Johnson's provocative first collection brings together dwarves and golems, Fates and minotaurs, murder, metamorphosis, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in eight richly-written stories.  An infertile witch constructs a golem-baby to fulfill her dying mother's wish. A cafeteria worker forms an uneasy alliance with a group of possibly imaginary but nonetheless dangerous little men.
An 18th century prostitute finds herself unwillingly immortalized and responds in kind.  Survival, identity, and family are all explored in these poetic tales that mingle terror and sentiment, fear and love. These are stories that dance on the edge of the abyss, that lead you through darkness in search of that single gleam of hope. This is Vacui Magia. "I can say without hesitation, reservation or exception that this is a collection full of brilliantly written and powerfully affecting stories, each of which profoundly impressed me in different ways .