Editor's Note, Fall/Winter 2000

An editor is forced, by definition, to tell his story by proxy, through the words of the writers he serves. I don’t mind this self-abnegation, because I’m a lousy storyteller, afraid to let my own imagination roam free. I feel safer having others front for me.

Now, however, after many fumbling attempts in a variety of media, I seem to have found a workable format: the corporate autobiography of ZYZZYVA, a literary magazine I founded 15 years ago.

Still, I hope I myself will not intrude too heavily, because that would be inappropriate—an editor should remain as invisible as any other backstage technician. True, we’ve become used to celebrity editors, but only as emblems of their magazines. We don’t want to know who they really are—unless they’re the great New Yorker editors, Harold Ross and William Shawn, about whom, of late, we’ve been told more than enough.

As to the recent bestseller A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story—I knew Dave Eggers when he was a respectful new kid in town, thrashing about with his weirdly unfocused MIGHT magazine. I liked him, he was out there. He quoted me in a piece for Salon about using direct mail to find new subscribers—he didn’t like being besieged by chintzy offers. I’m as amazed at the success of his plucky tale of editor-as-guardian (of his younger brother after their parents die) as he must be.

If my own story is not as exemplary, it may at least help dispel the image of the editor as ogre. I’m just Professor Marvel after all, not the Wizard of Oz himself.

It turns out that, with this issue, ZYZZYVA and I have reached 60 together. For a litmag to have survived so long, especially without university sponsorship, is remarkable; my own longevity also amazes me, especially since I tend to think of myself as a precocious brat—becoming an elder statesman will be a stretch.

Although ZYZZYVA has been a defining part of my recent life, its own life has derived from the larger community, a nebulous West Coast community we’ve tried to help define. Thanks to all those who have rallied under our banner—not just the writers and artists I’ve published, but even and especially those kind enough to show me work I had to reject.

As an editor, I only pretend to choose the best; what I really choose is what suits me. If I’m lucky, my readers are pleased to share my whims. I like to be surprised (and shocked). I need to have the world described. I’m desperate to have my deepest, most inaccessible dreams and desires articulated.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to the bottom line of this small arts organization—our board, advertisers, donors, and funders. And to the bookstores and magazine racks that have kept us in stock.

Many thanks in particular to Suzanne Young, who, as part of her program in creative nonfiction at Goucher College, interviewed me and ransacked our archives; the inspiration and, indeed, parts of this text, came from our sessions together.

In my version, I’ve followed the magazine’s basic format, alternating images with texts. The result, as always, seems to be a patchwork quilt, although, given its exotic crew and the heady mix of shoptalk, litcrit, and truelife, of sermonizing and diatribing, of madness and death, perhaps it’s more like Moby-Dick than a handstitched blankey.

For each issue of ZYZZYVA to date, I’ve written an Editor’s Note. The first was, pro forma, a manifesto, embarrassingly high-minded. Lately my Note has emerged as an essay, an indulgent three-page ramble. Excerpts of these Notes are sprinkled throughout this text; other parts have appeared, in somewhat different form, in Art in America, Poets & Writers, the late great San Francisco Review of Books, and the anthology, Fathering Daughters; I am grateful to their editors for permission to reprint.

I am also grateful for the support and encouragement of my friends and colleagues who read various versions: Tom Christensen, John Daniel, Mary Aswell Doll, Kathi George, Reg Gibbons, David Hamilton, DeWitt Henry, Maggie Paley, Nancy Randle, Hilda Raz, Jerome Tarshis, Deborah Treisman.

And thanks to Rozanne and Madison, for everything.