Essays

Carrie Golden tells us about how writing has been integral in her life.

Daydreaming happens. Sometimes we think it's a waste of time, but at others ... specifically at times when the blank page beckons, daydreams are shown to have sparkling facets like precious gems.

Lydia Manx shares with us some of what happens to her when she finds an idea or a prompt for writing.

Mel Trent offers the sound of her heart's passion -- the telling of stories.

To an outsider, his off beat taste in cars might have pegged him as an eccentric, or else a guy in desperate need of attention. Father was neither.

Dan H. Woods currently is in hiding in France, wearing a fake moustache and pretending his hobbies include woodworking and running marathons. At one time, Dan was also a Certified Beer Judge from the American Homebrewers Association. (It's good work if you can find it.)

This one is for all of us who ever had times we just wanted to go live in a cave far, far away from boomboxes and thumper car stereos and neighbors arguing on the sidewalk ...

It is a complex and demanding web of relationships, shadowed by dangerous connections and hidden pitfalls. We weave in and out of it, and half-jokingly name it "Civilization"...

Barry Udoff has been a ghostwriter, a speechwriter and a copywriter. He has written feature stories about the New York City draft riots and a B-17 bomber crew who flew the initial missions against Germany during WW II. His work has appeared in newspapers, trade magazines and on the Internet. He has an excessive reliance on spell check.

Looking up at the sky to see the lights of the Universe in their dance, who can resist the wonder and delights of astronomy?

Once upon a time, there were a bunch of Writers who had all kinds of words trying to pour out of their heads, through their fingers, and into print. Having little opportunity to get published, the Writers felt sluggish and sad, like highways with a magical traffic jam. Then one day, a tall blonde editor with a silver sword and an imagination like a wizard par excellence appeared, struck a computer with a spell of coding, and made The Piker Press appear ...

When it comes to salads, Dan Mulhollen considers them at their most useful merely as food for thought.

You wake up in the dark, wondering if the dog or the cat or the alarm is going to be the first to force you to get up. Everything is silent, and you don't move, not wanting to stir up the household by blundering about the room in the dark to look for a clock. And in the misty musings that tangle thoughts in the night, you remember that the date is going to be December 31st, the last day of the year. New Year's Eve. A thrill races through you: by this time tomorrow, dawn will be about to break on an entirely new year.

Sweet, bittersweet -- some things just remind us of our mothers.

Happy Mother's Day this week! Our cover story is dedicated to mothers everywhere, a bouquet of exotic blooms from the Modesto Tropical Plants Show held on 14th and 15th of April, 2007.

If we can live each moment as a poem needing only to be written, then beauty will always be with us.

This is the last full week before the start of National Novel Writing Month, and writers are itching to see cascades of words flowing from their fevered minds and aching fingers. How better to distract yourself from the wait than by letting some creativity flow by carving a pumpkin?

What makes Anime different from good old American animation? The depth of the difficult subject matter? The spare characteristics of the art? The non-formula plots? Mary Klaebel explains how she became hooked on Anime.

You get comfortable with the radio station you've listened to for years. The kind of music it plays becomes a part of you. Then -- WHAM! -- things change, and yes, it hurts!

What? Some of the Staff of the Piker Press have gone missing? Maybe they're sitting at their keyboards, trying to figure out how to stretch "And then a giant gopher came up out of the ground and ate them all" into say, 500 words or more? Looks like it's that time of year again ...

Foraging: It's what's for dinner.

The Curious Affair of the Seventeen Year Old Vienna Sausages, and Other Matters Worth Relating.

<b>A Story of Mashed-Chocolate Love.</b> Who knew that becoming a grandparent means eating candy could be such a chore?

<b>The Snot-Kid Diet.</b> What could turn a blissfully "heavy eater" away from a paradise-like buffet? Weight loss is just one snot-nosed kid away.

Yeast is no ingredient. It's <em>alive</em>. Sure, when you first get into baking, all you see are innocuous little packets of granules -- dry and gently slumbering "kitchen helpers". But once you delve into serious bread baking, you'll find the kitchen is a setting straight out of Lovecraft or Poe, and it's all because of yeast.

<b>Biscuit Evolution in My House</b>. Food is wasted on the young! Stern admonitions from the doctor cause the evolution of lovely food like biscuits into unrecognizable objects that resemble roofing shingles.

<b>Life Without Bacon is No Life at All. </b>If we gave up all our bad habits, what would we do for fun? Pondering an aescetic existence and finding it coming up lacking...