Zygote in My Coffee = dead?

Say it ain't so!

This comes as quite a surprise, and I'm sad. I always thought of Zygote in My Coffee as the only onther literary journal worth stealing writers from. I loved their front page newspaper layout. I loved that my job blocked Zygote on my work computer because there were stylized bare breasts on their front page. I loved knowing that if I saw a submission from somebody who had been published in Zygote, they were probably a wino. I loved their message board. I thought their small press books, which Fugate printed and bound out of his house, was the best of the indie presses. Zygote Print was an inspiration, and their Flipbook 69 series was one of the coolest things I had pulled out of my PO Box.

I never met Brian Fuggett, but we exchanged email plenty of times. He designed one of the original Thieves Jargon flyers. A lot of times I'd be drinking late in the night, reading through these submissions, wondering what the fuck I was doing, and I'd feel better knowing my brother from another mother was doing the same thing out in Ohio.

Not to say I don't understand. I'm a chronic single man, so there's some extra time to play around with. Fugate I know has a wife and a kid and a second kid coming (here?), all of which made it even more impressive how he was able to keep a journal going. Editing a journal is often times thankless. By virtue of rejecting at least 75% of the work you receive, all you're doing is pissing off unbalanced writers. You spend all your free time searching out this work you're so excited about, and you start message boards and nobody wants to talk about it and you wonder if the only people reading are writers looking for a place to get their work published, and then once you publish it, you never hear from them again. You get on the train and for a month straight you see people reading the same six books, so few people with gamble. There are plenty of frustrations, but you fight through them, because still, you believe you're doing something worthwhile. But shit, after five years, yeah, Fugate, happy trails. You done damn good, you left your mark, and you set the bar over and over again. Thanks for showing me how it's done.