This may come as a surprise, but probably only insofar that you didn't realize we hadn't written this yet.

Going, going, gone, but not forgotten….

The cry of "we're alive!" has been made a few times, but it's time to say we're not.

It's been an amazing journey, but sadly most of the journ was done five years ago, and the last five years were an attempt to do right by the last authors we'd accepted—but not well enough.

It’s been a no-man operation for most of that time (largely including releasing the last issue. We managed to revive a couple folks to edit and layout what had been selected, but print and banking and distribution and payments and marketing and design and ....)

One of my “big” outstanding projects is to get the issues up on a print on demand site—that can run itself more than my slapdash attempts to manage inventory and mail stuff. I have a few copies of most of the issues left. Dozens of a few. Actually lost a few hundred copies of various issues to mold in my last move. And more have been lost to floods as well.

You can basically see us talking to ourselves, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on our first blog post in March 26, 2006. http://www.gudmagazine.com/blog/archive/2006/3/26/first_post/ — There was a server crash in 2010, and I don't seem to have email from before that to remind myself of all the details of it coming together.

In a way, it started with a magazine I was part of back in 2002-2004 (NFG). In a way, it started with a poetry site I made in 2003 (poemranker). In a way, it started with a writing group I was part of from 1997-2000 (the "science fiction and fantasy writers' cooperative", later "imaginaries"). In a way, it started with a move, and getting married, and starting a web development business with a friend.

I spent months on MySpace, hours a day with custom tools I wrote, promoting GUD to every corner (and still have friends from that era!). One of whom made a few videos for GUD.

We put out eight (imo) amazing issues. Our first took about a year to put out (Spring 2007), and our plan was 2 a year. We averaged closer to one a year until thiings went sideways. Issue 6 we managed to get out in 2010. Issue 7 in 2016.

In a way, it started to die in 2010 with the server crash. In a way, it started to die before it began, with one of the most vocal editors bowing out before we finalized the corporation documents. The editorship became a somewhat round-robin thing with folks bowing out, and trying to find new folks to buy in and keep it moving forward with both time and money. In a way, it started to end when I moved and took on a full-time day-time job again (also in 2010).

We had a successful kickstarter in 2012, and that was the only thing that made getting Issue 7 out possible… but it wasn't enough to revive us, and may have actually been the nail in the coffin. We'd all gone different ways by then, and getting the band back together...didn't.

We deeply appreciate everyone who helped us along the way, all of our contributors, reviewers, fans, mentors, all the stores that took us in, all the libraries that ordered from us.

I hope to keep GUD going passively, moving orders to another platform so I don't get in the way of not shipping them.

But thank you, thank you all for everything you submitted, everything you read, every post you re-tweeted… Thank you.

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