Issue of April 16, 2007
23 articles in this issue.
Nerdak picks the wrong end for first contact. (Originally appeared 11-28-2005)
The Hummingbird has a custom chameleon paint job and an engine like the dream muscle car ... (Originally appeared 11-20-2006)
Welcome to the Piker Press, now celebrating our FIFTH anniversary as a weekly ezine dedicated to keeping writers WRITING. Five years go by very quickly, and it was with a good bit of surprise that I realized how far we've come on this merry adventure.
Little Ashlinne voices her hopes for the future. But if "Daddy" has already murdered your mommy and your teddy bear, what chance does a dream have for survival?(Originally appeared 01-02-2006)
This isn't stealing lunch money from the choir boy up the street, this is Ashlinne's first real fight, and it's for keeps! Well. Actually that may be a matter worth some debate.(Originally appeared 04-17-2006)
Nudity! Skanks! It can only mean... the return of Byzantium. Two years later, it's orientation week for the new freshman class at the Academy of Dark Arts. (Originally appeared 05-08-2006)
Marvelous Mars and the sadly misguided Percival Lowell. With a name like that, you'd see imaginary canals, too. (Originally appeared 08-18-2003)
Lassen Volcanic National Park lies almost fifty miles due east of Redding, California. On June 22, 2003 I am not thinking of the Park's beauty. On this night, a murmur of a search in progress begins, and grows as the bright, hot day fades into a still, breezeless night. A tiny child, not yet four years old, is lost. (Originally appeared 07-24-2004)
The Piker Press from conception to two years of age. An editor's retrospective.(Originally appeared 04-10-2004)
Senior Editor Alexandra Queen tries her hand at writing truly awesomely crappy poetry -- and shows that she really has a knack for it!
Poetry inspired by the Mummies issue.(Originally appeared 05-23-2005)
A small-town death blows the door wide open on some world-class gossip. The Mayor has died in bed, but he wasn't alone. Not only was the bed not his, but it had seen some highly varied traffic go through. There's going to be a lot of emotion surrounding this funeral...(Originally appeared 08-15-2005)
A fable, as told to children. (Draft excerpt from 'Natural Causes', a NaNoWriMo 2003 work-in-progress)(Originally appeared 11-08-2003)
An old fairy tale with a new twist.(Originally appeared 06-10-2002)
In the middle of suburbia, a murder-suicide leaves a house haunted by the weeping of a baby, and a garage as cold as a tomb.(Originally appeared 11-07-2005)
The shadows of Old Town were her shadows, and the breeze drifting through the twisted lanes was her breath, and it spoke with her voice, saying, "Kill him ninety-nine ways ... " (Originally appeared 08-21-2006)
In Zimbabwe, law books and facts are respected, and taken into serious consideration. But the Elders know that there is much more to justice than sentences written on paper by strangers who may or may not have ever tasted the satisfaction of curried goat.(Originally appeared 04-03-2006)
Adventure Scouts are helpful, polite, and work hard at being good. But darn it, it's hard to sell cookies when you're all hungry ... (Originally appeared March 31, 2003)
A creation myth.(Originally appeared 04-17-2004)
Strange forces are at play, but no tiny, chirping, harbinger of the apocalypse is going to get away with destroying the world tonight.(Originally appeared 06-06-2005)
Spring is a good time of year to look at how we view the block we live on ... (Originally appeared 03-27-2004)