A teenager performs stripteases in her bedroom window as funeral processions pass by. A grieving mother reunites with her miscarried foetus. A widow takes on the sinister, rapacious treehouse in next door's garden. Combining pitch-perfect, darkly comic observations with tender touches of humanity, Pain Sluts chronicles the flaws, frailties, and enduring spirit of an eclectic cast of curious characters as they navigate threats to their identity and humanity.


A brave and bold literary debut bursting with calamity and compassion, Pain Sluts is an astonishing collection of stories which lays bare our beauty and bizarreness. Laden with love, loss and longing, this book illuminates Sian's extraordinary ability to create believable characters that brave our brittle world, often in outlandish or unusual ways. Sharp and tender, true and wise, these stories announce the arrival
of a uniquely talented new voice in British fiction.


Sian Hughes is a freelance copywriter, screenwriter, and author whose short stories have been published online and in print and adapted for film or TV, appearing on HTV, BBC Wales, and S4C. An adaptation of her short story 'Consumed', starring 'The Descent's' Shauna Macdonald, was premiered in 2021 at the Glasgow Short Film Festival. Having recently completed an MA in Creative Writing, Sian also works as a creative practitioner for the Arts Council of Wales. Sian lives in Cardiff with her husband, three children,
and a menagerie of wayward animals.