"Best-selling author Erica Jong here turns her attention to the fantastical and factual world of witchcraft. She explores the figure of the witch both as historical reality and as archetype - as Halloween hag and full-breasted seductress, as a lingering vestige of a primeval religion and a projection of fear of the unknown. On page after page filled with magical illustrations by Joseph Smith, Erica Jong treats the witch as a survivor of the age of sorcery, as a scapegoat for male-dominated church-state politics, as a remarkable natural healer, and as a hexer without peer. In poetry and prose, she relates tales of torture and triumph, a gallery of witches' familiars, real recipes for love potions and flying lotions, and formulas for spells and incantations that make this volume rich with mystery and delight." -- From jacket.

Move over, urban fantasy--here comes "suburban" fantasy. What self-respecting witch, vampire, or werewolf would be caught dead--or undead--anywhere but the Big City, you may ask? Look, let's give the uncanny crew a little credit for intelligence: If they had the smarts to see the advantage in packing up and moving "into" the cities, why wouldn't they have the smarts to move "out" of said cities if it looked like they could get a better quality-of-life/death elsewhere? (Tough enough going about your otherworldly business and evading the occasional mob wielding halogen torches and designer pitchforks, but have you ever "seen" city real estate prices?) So let's welcome our first group of supernatural suburbanites, the witches. Their powers are awesome, their methods of coping with the lumps, bumps, and idiosyncrasies of Suburbia are ingenious, and they always bring the loveliest gingerbread to the PTA bake sale. But whatever you do, don't try telling them that life in a non-city setting is bland, banal and boring, or you might get turned into . . . "ribbit! " Stories of suburban sorcery by Harry Turtledove, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jan and S.M. Stirling, K. D. Wentworth, and more--including Esther Friesner herself.