The City of Missing Letters

This refers to an out-of-print version of the text In the city of Ars Lacuna, ideas literally burst from the skulls of writers. A seven-sided publishing house takes up a quarter of the city. Monsters made of discarded paperbacks stalk the streets, looking for tasty morsels.Varvara is a young orphan working for the ghostwriters of Exorcism Avenue. One day, while scrounging through a rubbish heap, a discarded idea smacks her in the face. It looks like a corn husk doll. Var sees something in it. She sees a way out of Exorcism Avenue and into the limelight.Anton is at the end of his career. He has gone skull barren birthing his last, half-formed idea. Dementia maggots eat at his brain. Coming home from the hospital, he startles an intruder rummaging in his home. It turns out to be an idea more promising than any he has seen in decades.A story of creation and destruction, of redemption and revenge, The City of Missing Letters is the first story set in the Ars Lacuna universe.