Essays

Dianne Post is an attorney who worked for twenty years representing battered women and children in family courts. Since 1998 she has been doing international human rights work focused primarily on gender-based violence. Her writings include articles, columns, law review articles, and short stories for which she has won several prizes.

Rebecca Morean is a mother of four, raises a small heard of goats and makes cheese, teaches writing and composition at Sinclair Community College, and wants to right wrongs by writing about wrongs. She has published over two dozen short stories, and her articles and fiction have appeared in <i>Salon, Crone, Kalliope</i>, and <i>Mississippi Mud</i> among others. Her novel, <i>In the Dead of Winter</i> (St. Martin's Press) was picked up as a series by Breese Books in England and is about the daughter of Sherlock Holmes. She is currently the president of the Antioch Writers' Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

A tragic affliction, and wouldn't you know it, it's not even seasonal ...

We can blame the wrecked Mercedes on the man in his underwear ...

Phillip Donnelly continues his examination of Ho Chi Minh City, looking both at the past and the future of the place remembered as "Saigon..."

Tim Henderson describes what it is like to be transported to medieval times by Medieval Times.

Grief is an emotion we dread, yet need to embrace ...

April of 2009 brings the Piker Press another anniversary as a weekly ezine. To kick off our eighth year, this issue presents the thoughts of some of our writers about their writing itself. Many thanks to all who have contributed to the Piker Press in the past, and best wishes to all who will share their words and images in the Piker Press in the future.

The letters change, the answers add up ... writing can be like a word puzzle.

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.