<DIV><I>Fantastic Women</I> comprises eighteen stories by some of the most exciting contemporary women writers in the United States. The daughters of Franz Kafka and Mary Shelley, the Brothers Grimm, and Angela Carter, these inventive, insightful authors steep their narratives in a heady potion of surrealism and macabre black comedy. The result is wildly creative work that captures the potent truth about human nature far more clearly than much of the fiction (or, for that matter, the nonfiction) being written today.<BR><BR>Why just women? More and more women writers are creating work that not only pushes the envelope but also folds realistic fiction into an origami dragon, transporting readers into worlds we've never seen before and digging deeper into the psychic bedrock than their male counterparts.<BR><BR>So slip into a pocket universe, drive through a family's home, awake in the night to find you've become a deer, and dive into the ocean to join your mermaid mother. We can't imagine ever wanting to escape this spellbinding world, but if you must, best leave a trail of crumbs along your way.</DIV>