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
Sharon Telfer grew up on Teesside and now lives in East Yorkshire, where she works as a freelance editor. She has won the Reflex Flash Fiction Prize and, twice, the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her work appears in Best Small Fictions 2021. She was awarded the New Writing North/Word Factory Northern Short Story Apprenticeship in 2018. In 2020, she placed second in the Bath Short Story Award. Her work has been selected for Test Signal, an anthology of the best contemporary Northern writing, published by Dead Ink Books and Bloomsbury in 2021. She is a founding editor at FlashBack Fiction, an online lit mag showcasing historical flash fiction.
Hansen (verified owner) –
This is a wonderful collection of flash fiction, little vignettes and slices of different characters’ lives with well-measured, poetic vocabulary and interesting settings.
Sarah (verified owner) –
A beautiful collection. Really enjoyed and admired the stories, characterisation and writing.
Anne Eyries (verified owner) –
Sharon Telfer’s writing sublimes flash, perfecting the art of conveying so much in so few words. Her stories are often akin to myth, fable, portent, omen, bearing shamanistic shades. Their atmospheres and occasional apt archaic vocabulary remind me of Mary-Jane Holmes’ writing in ‘Don’t Tell The Bees’.
In ‘The Map Waits’, the reader is nudged, rocked, swept away by waves of eminently pertinent, poignant, poetic prose where every phrase conjures up a new picture, vision, delight. There are titles from Shakespeare, e.g. “Even to the Edge of Doom”, lyrical lines throughout, e.g. “his life suspended on a silver sliver of speed, ice spitting in his face”, and final sentences like magic anchors, e.g. “That starched white eggshell of a dress.” Characters and stories are very varied, interesting and intriguing, reflective rather than melancholic, precise and profound, and crafted with lilting, uplifting language. I sincerely enjoyed and appreciated 48 of these 49 stories. “Terra Incognita”, one of my favourites, begins “The galleys wallow home, bellies low with other men’s gold.” Likewise, indulging in Sharon Telfer’s collection takes us on a mesmerising voyage, “heart thumping like a fresh-caught fish”.