A Small Light & Other Stories

A mysterious woman stalks a seaside town. An isolated couple inhabit a house full of tropical birds. A rowboat floats down a river toward a witch's cave. Death wanders an unnamed city during the plague. Sara Century's debut short story collection carries with it surreal visions inspired by pulp paperbacks, art house films, comic books of all flavors, and classic queer villains. A Small Light & Other Stories gathers tales that hinge on troubled characters with nothing left to lose encountering existential horrors, where everyday problems escalate into insurmountable monsters, and we find ourselves unable to escape dreams long since transformed into nightmares.

"Century's fiction packs the potency of a nightmare that haunts the mind long after one has woken. She weaves dark poetry out of her character's relationships and crafts imagery designed to unsettle and inspire awe in equal measure. These stories whisper in your ear in the dark of night, and you will find yourself welcoming their insidious omens with outstretched arms." - Brendan Vidito (Pornography for the End of the World)

"Sara Century writes with subtle intensity and care. In a genre often extreme, alien, and operatic, her horror stories drop us into the small center of our familiar, vulnerable human core and send ripples spreading outward, enlarging gradually to create a total emotional effect. A Small Light... is a book full of dark awakenings." - Joe Koch (The Wingspan of Severed Hands, Convulsive)