zyzzyva (ZIZ-zi-va) n. Any of various tropical American weevils of the
genus Zyzzyva, often destructive to plants. Last word in some dictionaries.

Slimming down my book collection, I couldn't help notice at the used bookstore, a gent haggling over the price of several (but not all) ZYZZYVAs. You have become a collector's item in your own time.

Bob Judd, Palo Alto

Your website is Kul.

Carol Jane Bangs, Nordland, WA

I shared "Karyn's Murder" [ZYZZYVA 53] with my class last week. Never have I seen such emotions flare--and simmer--seethe--below the surface in my ten years of teaching English in this state. While most of the class (the Caucasian part) liked it, the other part (the "local" part) took offense. It was a toss up: do we read it and identify as women (alas, it was a "lit. by women" course) and thus join in the fight against domestic violence, or do we identify primarily as part of a certain ethnic group and respond along those lines? Of course, the third option--to respond as humans didn't seem nearly as viable an option in a heated sophomore classrom.

Mary Alexander, Lihue, HI

I was impressed with the selections from ZYZZYVA in this year's Pushcart Prize anthology.

George Bishop, Jr., Wilmington, NC

Just picked up Best American Short Stories '98. Thank you for printing Kathryn Chetkovich's "Appetites." A marvelous, perfect short story.

Dan McClenaghan, Oceanside

Thank you for your generous gift of copies for my writing class. The variety of pieces in ZYZZYVA is one of the reasons I wanted to use it. The writing quality is of course the other. Thanks in part to reading the journal, some of my students have decided to submit essays to the department's creative-writing journal, The San Joaquin Review.

Robin R. Ford, Cal State, Fresno

The back cover of ZYZZYVA is always sharp and witty. However, I'd much prefer to contribute to the pages preceding it.

John Davidson, Los Angeles

I regard ZYZZYVA as a great successor to the influential cultural publications of the past that have helped keep American literature going and would certainly be happy to see my work there.

William Ludington, Sacramento

I am interested in submitting, but I saw in your guidelines that you only accept the work of West Coast writers. It turns out (I'm not sure how) that I now live in Ohio. Decidedly not the West Coast (it was 0 degrees today). Also, damning as this may be, I grew up in Connecticut--probably the anti-West Coast. But in 1963 I was born in Los Angeles and lived there for at least two formative years, where, thanks to my mother's job at MGM, I got to try on an ape mask or two from Planet of the Apes. The man who married my mother and adopted me as his own (he allowed me to take off the ape mask) was born and raised in Oakland--so I believe I have a West Coast accent, latent. In any case, I am a West Coast writer in exile (stretching this like taffy)....

hayward.17@osu.edu