Among the new arrivals is smart, devious Angelina. She is escaping the shame of her mixed heritage, determined not to live in poverty. Angelina casts a single die, inherited from her father, to help decide her fate.

Over the course of thirty flashes, Throw a Seven follows Angelina and her fellow immigrants, a fascinating cast of characters, as they live, love and fight together over three decades.

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Within these pages, the traditional narrative shares space with the experimental. Humour sits alongside tragedy. Each of these page-long stories packs a punch greater than its word count suggests.

In Defence of Pseudoscience is the perfect introduction to readers new to flash fiction and essential reading for those already familiar with the form.

Includes prize-winning flash fiction from Annette Edwards-Hill, Jeanine Skowronski, Thomas Malloch, Joshua Jones, Kirsteen Ure, Simon Linter, Morgan Quinn, Matt Kendrick, Evelyn Forest, Becca Yenser, Karen Jones, Rosaleen Lynch, Nora Nadjarian, Jo Withers, and Katja Sass.

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The Peculiarities of Yearning is a collection of short fiction of various lengths and genres that is pulled together by a thread of exploration of what it means to yearn: to long for, suppress, and ultimately allow what matters to emerge and be acted on – thus reflecting the journey of psychotherapy.

Praise for The Peculiarities of Yearning

Carty dives deep in her stories. The stories are a tightrope of psychology and its impact on the body. In sharp prose, girls live in a world without red, natural laws transform, the dead are preserved, DNA disobeys, babies are kept in stasis. Dark, astute and always surprising, this is utterly fascinating writing. Yearning has never been so good.
—Angela Readman, author of Don’t Try This at Home and Something like Breathing

Carty’s beguiling and lyrical prose is displayed perfectly in this inventive and varied collection that runs the gamut of human emotions. Shocking, witty, sad and funny, these are stories that show humanity at its best and worst.
—Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Dead Relatives and Water Will Refuse Them

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Rachel is ten years old when a dog is rocketed into space. When she is sixteen, the first female astronaut orbits the Earth. At seventeen, she falls in love with Tommy. But Rachel and Tommy’s love is not written in those distant stars. Facing disapproval and uncertainty, they are forced apart.

Half a century later, they cross paths in a hotel bar and are confronted with a lifetime of what-ifs. Rachel’s life of social conformity has brought her the joys and heartbreaks of motherhood. Tommy’s marriage into high society has made him the most famous artist of a generation. But what if they had never given up on their dreams of adventure? Is what they gained apart worth as much as what they might have had together?

At the Bottom of the Stairs is a story of female space explorers and climbing trees, of loving the life you didn’t lead and learning to love the one you did.

Praise for At the Bottom of the Stairs

Full of wisdom, beauty and skill, Banks creates a powerful story that pierces the soul.
—FJ Morris, author of This Is (Not About) David Bowie

At the Bottom of the Stairs is a genuinely touching book and a pleasure to read.
—Gaynor Jones, author of Among These Animals

A love letter to language, such is the quality of Banks’ prose.
—Michael Loveday, author of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash and Three Men on the Edge

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In 1982, the year of the Falklands War, three naïve and self-absorbed students move to the dystopic Lovelace Flats and become unwittingly embroiled in a series of deaths. Petra, Woody, and Stan know the flats are run-down and disreputable, but the year starts with a cold winter, and underfloor heating is included in the rent — as if the flats were built directly over the firepits of hell.

Praise for Lovelace Flats

A complex, ambitious, and deeply impressive novella, Lovelace Flats has real charm as well as an edge. Jupiter Jones builds a rich story-world from vivid settings, and her ensemble cast is a 1980s society in microcosm.
—Michael Loveday, author of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash

Jupiter Jones is that rare thing — a writer with a voice entirely, unmistakably her own. In darkly comic prose, packed full of startling linguistic brio, Lovelace Flats transports us to the concrete walkways and landings of the 1980s inner-city flats. A tautly plotted story building to a terrifying climax.
—David Rhymes, author of The Last Days of the Union

In this novella, Jupiter Jones achieves a perfect balance of tension and humour. Each character, whether central or peripheral, is intricately drawn — complex, surprising, often vulnerable. I loved it.
—Johanna Robinson, author of Homing

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"Some homeschool days, the lounge is a sea, stairs a snowcapped mountain, bathroom a jungle, Mum and Dad’s bedroom a sun-seared dessert…"

The stories in The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain speak of togetherness and separation: how we strive to connect with that one person who could save us, and how we attempt to save the people who most matter to us.

Discover the lost, the self-conscious, the reckless. Learn how to milk an alpaca. Encounter a river with one thing on its mind. Touch on moments of isolation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Find out how a ghost tree could bring a community together. Witness the moment when friendship sparks into something more. Consume a life in one mouthful. Meet the lovers, the families and the undefinable others who make up these worlds and sweep us along.

Darley has a beguiling and distinct voice; her writing is never less than beautiful. A captivating collection.
—Amanda Huggins, author of Crossing the Lines and All Our Squandered Beauty

Beautifully written and frequently surprising, this book is a wonderful read for these unusual and uncertain times.
—Gaynor Jones, author of Among These Animals

There’s so much loveliness in Darley’s collection, often in the most unexpected places. In every way, this is a collection for all the senses to savour.
—Fiona J Mackintosh, author of The Yet Unknowing World

This wise and tender collection, steeped in nature and human nature, is a balm for an aching soul. Rich and diverse, deep but accessible, this dark forest of stories is endlessly dappled with intelligence, empathy, wit, kindness, and hope.
—Tom O’Brien, author of Straw Gods

Darley’s dexterous writing converges with the often intangible complexities when connecting to self, other, and the environment. This extraordinary collection provokes us to engage with each of our senses simultaneously so that we may float untethered...
—Iona Winter, author of Gaps in the Light and then the wind came

I will revisit these stories again and again because their surreal and exquisite evocation of the everyday really made me think.
—Jan Kaneen, author of The Naming of Bones

Judy Darley asks what it is to be alive today, in this world, right now, in a way that constantly surprises, informs and excites.
—Alison Woodhouse, author of The House on the Corner and Family Frames

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Longlisted for the 2022 Edge Hill Prize.

‘The mapmakers work late in the closed room, conjuring from ink and skin new worlds neither will ever see.’

The Map Waits explores those moments when what will happen as we move forward remains unknown and uncharted. A besieged zookeeper awaits his fate; a magician’s assistant performs her own vanishing act; a photographer refuses the shot of a lifetime: these rich miniatures capture turning points deep in the heart. Characters realise a secret or deny a truth. Some overturn imposed stories of how they should live; others refuse to acknowledge a choice they have made. New lives are welcomed, losses are mourned. Long-buried memories erupt, new journeys begin.

Where will these stories take you?

Praise for The Map Waits

The Map Waits by Sharon Telfer is simply a stunning collection. This is a writer who knows her people, knows their struggles and heartaches, the dreams they hold dear. There's generational pain in these stories. There's loss, too, and the ravages of war, but also an abundance of grit and courage and joy. Telfer's prose is rich and precise, evocative and lyrical. A profoundly moving, incandescent debut from a truly gifted writer.
—Kathy Fish, Wild Life: Collected Works

Sharon Telfer has been one of my favourite flash fiction writers for a number of years, so I’ve been eagerly anticipating her debut collection. It has been well worth the wait; The Map Waits didn’t just exceed my expectations, it blew them away.

With just a few brushstrokes, Sharon creates world after world after world that pull you in and makes you want to slow ... down ... to ... absorb. absolutely. everything. She’s an artist who paints with nuance, perfectly balancing what’s on the page with what’s implied.

There are no weak links in this collection that builds to more than the sum of its parts. Sharon’s writing is sharp, scrupulous and striking. There is magic between these lines, and poetry inside them.
—Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Co-Director, National Flash Fiction Day (UK)

The Map Waits, Sharon Telfer’s debut collection of contemporary and historical short fictions, is poignant and profound. As well as working as compelling whole pieces, her stories are brilliantly composed at the sentence level — she has such an exact command of language and rhythm. The stories illustrate everything that is best about short form prose and have much to say about all aspects of humanity past and present. Highly recommended.
—Jude Higgins, The Chemist’s House

The Map Waits is full of wonder and wisdom; the stories are lush, deep, and crafted, and Sharon Telfer manages to bring sincerity and sensitivity to every line she writes. A truly beautiful collection.
—Nuala O’Connor, Birdie

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The Thin Line Between Everything and Nothing is a flash fiction collection that explores the fragility of human relationships and those unexpected meetings and moments that upend our familiar worlds. In her debut collection, Hannah Storm takes us to far-off countries and cultures, offering the reader a glimpse of the stories behind easily forgotten headlines, blending them with myth and magic. It is here that we meet characters often pushed to the extreme, who remind us that we are all still animals – driven by instinct and a need for protection. Woven throughout are the frequently difficult dynamics that disempower and define women and which transcend distance and cultures. From this emerges an exploration of place and safety: how those environments we may fear as most hostile can bring us the greatest peace, while those that should promise comfort engender precisely the opposite.

Praise for The Thin Line Between Everything and Nothing

Hannah Storm performs powerful storytelling magic in this stunning debut. These emotionally gripping stories span the globe, peek into far-flung corners, inhabit dark roads and sunburnt tarmacs. They show us war-weary innocents, displaced seekers, imperfect lovers, mothers and children and outsiders, all longing for something like home. Storm's vision here is as aimed and searing as it is compassionate and wise. A breathtaking wonder, The Thin Line Between Everything and Nothing is not to be missed.
—Kathy Fish, Wild Life: Collected Works

An unbeatable combination of courage and talent. Respect.
—Vanessa Gebbie, The Coward's Tale

Powerful writing as strong and inspiring as the writer. Hannah Storm’s short stories about little moments reveal far bigger truths about a wider, often wicked, world. They shock, they soothe; her exquisite script and extraordinary strength will keep you looking for more.
—Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief International Correspondent

Hannah Storm’s bold, brilliant writing is international in scope, digging deep into our personal geographies, a fraught territory of experiences that connect us and make us human.
—Michael Loveday, Three Men on the Edge

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Within these pages, the traditional narrative shares space with the experimental. Humour sits alongside tragedy. Each of these page-long stories packs a punch greater than its word count suggests.

Beguiled by a Wild Thing is the perfect introduction to readers new to flash fiction and essential reading for those already familiar with the form.

Includes prize-winning flash fiction from Faye Brinsmead, Tania Hershman, Avra Margariti, Amy Barnes, Kali Richmond, Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, D Brody Lipton, Gillian O’Shaughnessy, Diane D Gillette, Morgan Quinn, Victoria Richards, Mark Colbourne, and Louise Watts.

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The thirty-three flash fictions of Love Stories for Hectic People explore the alignment of beings that is love. There is love that is vulgar, love that knows no reason; there is love that cradles the act of living, love that springs through the cracks; love that is slaughtered. These tales take place from Italy to Ghana to Greece and London and Tokyo, in grainy cities and muted hotel rooms; there is a Mafia murder, an ambulance rescue worker and a woman whose husband falls off a mountain. There is unchaste attraction and slippery, nuanced love; police violence and porn, and fishing too.

Praise for Love Stories for Hectic People

I rarely receive a review copy, sit right down and read most of it in one sitting. Catherine McNamara's Love Stories for Hectic People had me doing that. It's a beguiling collection of flash fiction - the author's third - that's as briskly inventive and various as the form demands, embracing sensuality and ugliness in equal measure, and darting from one international encounter to another. Love lies at the heart of the matter, each time round, but grief and brutality are there, too.'The country where he was born had scorched hills and quixotic animals and wise elders with spectacularly gnarled toes...'
—Michael Caines, Brixton Review of Books

Like a raconteur in a lamplit Venetian bar, McNamara understands the charm and architecture of a tale. These structurally compressed fictions still cover significant ground as one consequence topples like a domino into the next, and conflicts modulate between forms. Yet, unlike a bar-room raconteur, McNamara rarely offers us easy resolutions. Her characters wrestle through their cosmopolitan situations, while lust, violence, and repulsion simmer in the midst of romance, sensuality, and intimacy. Love Stories for Hectic People is that rare thing – a book that gets better with each re-reading. McNamara has produced, in these stylish modern fables, a sophisticated study of relationships. She holds up an ornate mirror flecked with shadows.
—Michael Loveday, Three Men on the Edge

Catherine McNamara is one of the best writers I’ve read in all the time I've been in publishing. She can do more in two hundred words than most writers can do in two hundred pages. By turns real, funny, dark, magic, ugly, and beautiful. This collection rocks.
—Christopher James, Jellyfish Review

Seductive love, evaporating love and sometimes ‘increasingly superb’ love: it's all in these pages. Sharp, witty and deeply real, these small stories reveal moments of connections, and sometimes dissolution. One can't help but be captivated by these many and varied truths, as examined by Catherine McNamara – and the conclusion, despite the darkness, that ‘Love Is an Infinite Victory’.
—Michelle Elvy, the everrumble

Sometimes quiet and reflective, sometimes sensual and visceral, these thirty-three short pieces are assured meditations on the foibles and complexities of love – the making and unmaking of it. This collection drifts across continents and cultures, slowly unbuttoning aspects of relationships between an eclectic cast of characters, and the places they find themselves.
—K.M. Elkes, All That Is Between Us

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