I wish a splendid Benefactor would come along to single-handedly relieve the constant anxiety: Will our tremendously loyal advertisers and our tremendously loyal donor-base rally once again to keep us afloat?

...the late F. X. Toole could have seen Million Dollar Baby, which was inspired by his stories, the first of which—his first time in print, when he was 69 years old—appeared in ZYZZYVA Spring ’99. (Glimpse it at www.zyzzyva.org/sp99-toole.htm. Read another Toole in Winter ’01.)

...we could put an end to war, disease, poverty.

...this journal’s interior pages could stretch-flex enough to accomodate full-size reproductions of art works, poems with extra-long lines, manifestos that really should be deployed as broadsheets.

...the government, at every level, would get out of arts-funding, which it does with such a heavy hand, and let us citizens spend our own money our own way. And get out of a few other places as well.

...more writers were decent enough to subscribe and not just treat me as an outlet.

...foundations would stop being “proactive” and simply support the programs we supplicants have worked so hard to develop. And stop making the application process itself so punitive, so much a life’s-work on its own.

...at least one local foundation would take literary publishing seriously.

...more famous writers would send me a manuscript once in a while, just for the hell of it, without being asked, for my standard rate of $50, regardless of length or genre.

...I got a “genius” award, a lifetime achievement award, tenure, a three-book deal, and an HBO mini-series, “The ZYZ,” with Hilary Swank as a wannabe—volunteer by day, bartender by night, waiting on word from Iowa.

Most of all, I wish I could thank you enough for letting me have so much fun for the past 20 years, despite it all.