Last Fall, I had this idea of contacting authors who had previously published their stuff with the Piker Press.
Seriously, LAST FALL. Here it is, less than a month before Spring, and I just today was able to climb over the monsters and nightmares and phobias and panics and JUST DO IT, DAMMIT.
All I had to do was construct a nice form letter that could be personalized, pull out the files of contracts, and go through them, one by one, get the email addresses, and plug in the emails and the stories' titles, and hit "Send."
I've become such a hermit that to do so was paralyzing... but today I did it. And oddly enough, it didn't hurt as badly as I thought it would. I was weary by the end of the day, but not freaked out and shattered. The first step wasn't even such a doozy that I fell down. The next steps were more like an escalator, and seeing the list of names get marked off with my highlighter sent endorphins all through my brain.
Goal!
Activity!
Completion!
The Piker Press is coming up on being a decade old. When the Press was conceived, Lillian was still a month or so from being born, and she's going to be ten in May. I'd love for former contributors to submit something for April issues, and instead of one Anniversary Issue, have an Anniversary Month. We'll see how that pans out.
You Filthy Pikers who didn't get an email yet, expect one. I won't do form letters with them who should be submitting regularly, because I love you, and know you will do what you can.
That wall candle sconce? It amplifies the light of the candle in olden times.
The Piker Press does that, too. Not just on your own computer screen do your words appear, but on screens all over the world.
Light it up, write it up -- we're not famous, as how many people go to the web for literature -- but we're out there, and have been for almost ten years.