Archived News from the Poison Pie Publishing House.

On-going Blog Series

• Hebeloma's Scherzo for Solo Flute; updated daily in 2026
• A Survey of Bestiaries; updated semi-monthly in 2026
• Music Reviews; posted sporadically in 2026

January 4, 2026
AI Declaration
In discussing the inclusion of an "AI declaration" in yesterday's blog post the staff realized that the Poison Pie Publishing House has not issued an IA declaration. Until now, we overlooked such a statement because it wasn't relevant to us. However as AI permeates the creative world, a definitive position becomes a useful badge of identification. Find below the AI declaration of the Poison Pie Publishing House. In years to come it may seem the quaint sentiment of a Luddite. Nevertheless, it has the advantage of being true.

All creative output—written, visual and otherwise—of the Poison Pie Publishing House, past and present, is generated exclusively by human beings. No large-language models were employed in the creative process. Adoption of AI tools is not planned in the future. Any subsequent deviation from this statement will be explicitly noted.

January 3, 2026
A Survey of One Hundred Bestiaries
In June of 2016, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House began a survey of books cataloguing mythical beasts and fantastic creatures. The idea was to provide one example from each book, which represented the kind of text and graphics used to describe the creatures collected therein. There was explicitly no attempt at critical review. Variations in style as well as in production targets are an essential part of the appeal of the collection. At the time, we regarded A Survey of One Hundred Bestiaries as an ambitious title. For the past few years, the PPPH staff have added a new entry monthly. In 2026, it is our plan to add a new entry to the survey semi-monthly on the first and third Saturdays of each month, as we have accumulated a backlog. Today, January 3, 2026, we add the 360^th volume. A link to the index of the survey is here.

As a sign of the changing times, the first entry for 2026, A Compendium of Familiars & Companions: Volume 1: Beasts & Fey, published by Adventurica in 2025, contains a new category of description, namely an "AI declaration". This comment states whether tools of artificial intelligence were employed in the generation of the creative work, either words or artwork. As before, we make no judgment of the bestiary but present an entry from it and allow readers to formulate their own response.

January 2, 2026
Null_Sets
Here at the Poison Pie Publishing House, we are nothing if not creatures of habit. With the completion of Hebeloma's Psalm of Absolution, we have translated the text to an abstract image, using the Null_Sets script created by Prof. Amy Szczepanski and Prof. Evan Meaney, who at the time, were members of the faculty in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department and the Art Department respectively at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. We have converted many written works from the PPPH to Null_Sets images since we learned of it sometime in, if memory serves, 2015. A link to the index of the Null_Sets gallery at the PPPH is here.

January 1, 2026
2025: The Year in Review at the Poison Pie Publishing House
In the year 2025, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House produced one new book, issued two second editions of technical monographs and released one book into the digital wilds. Hebeloma's Psalm of Absolution, a post-existential musical score generated through a non-idiomatic, improvisational creative process, was serially published on a daily basis in 2025 on the blog of the Poison Pie Publishing House. The score is illustrated by Julia K. Keffer of Bus Stop Art Show (). Drafts of the artwork are posted in a gallery while we await the original artwork to be sent for scanning, pending the completion of the final piece for December. Hebeloma's Psalm of Absolution recounts the adventure of Melite, one of the maidens offered to the minotaur by King Minos, immediately after she escaped from the labyrinth.

The technical branch of the Poison Pie Publishing House published second editions of two monographs: A Practical Introduction to Applied Statistics for Materials Scientists and Engineers and A Practical Introduction to Numerical Methods for Materials Scientists and Engineers, for use in an undergraduate course on the subjects. Approximately one hundred tutorial codes were translated to Python.

In March, the PPPH digitally released I Saw Blood and then Everything Went Black, written in 1992—1993 and originally published in paperback in 2012.

Also in 2025, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House generated a few music reviews. In doing so, we hope only to spread the word about hidden musical gems from the cultural margin. We shared a few quotes that struck us. We continued our on-going monthly update of A Survey of One Hundred Bestiaries. We continued to engage in our guilty pleasure of rendering characters and scenes from books into shrinky dink form, creating a mobile of the chapter headings from Hebeloma's Lament in a Dozen Denials (2024) as well as the first two window tapestries composed of panels of entries from volumes included in A Survey of One Hundred Bestiaries.

The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House is no longer setting annual goals. However, the daily blog will continue, with the intention of engaging in non-idiomatic improvisation. This work will take the form of a musical score and is titled, Hebeloma's Scherzo for Solo Flute (2026).

To our readers, we, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House, thank you for your interest and support and we look forward to another mutually creative and unpredictable year.