Guernica should be impossible. It should be impossible to publish incredible work, week after week, month after month, year after year, without money. We love that our magazine offers a home to work that isn’t always welcome elsewhere — work that is too bold, too challenging, too experimental, too plural, to suit conventional commercial demands.

For 15 years, all of us — poets, novelists, journalists, essayists, artists, designers, copy-editors, production editors, social media editors, poetry editors, fiction and nonfiction readers, fiction and nonfiction editors — worked hard to make this beautiful thing for which no one was paid. We were backed up by even more invisible generosity — lawyers protecting our writers; tax professionals making sure we’re square with the government; board members helping us grow, all volunteers of time and (expensive) expertise.

We all labored for free, I think, for a really simple reason: because Guernica is needed. It’s a magazine that promises readers and writers, both, that there are ways of seeing and being and knowing and voicing that are missing from the commercial literary landscape — ways that are valuable, even urgent.

Even working for free has bills, and the bills for software and infrastructure that keeps the magazine online run into the thousands of dollars. We manage those bills with generous donations from our readers, supporters, and institutional donors. With the money they have been able to give, coupled with the time and talent Guernica’s writers and editors have been able to give, we’ve been able to keep this impossible miracle alive.

A few years ago, we climbed just above of our bills, and we found ourselves with a chance to pay for some of the labor that makes Guernica. We didn’t have much, but we had enough to reliably offer something to someone in that enormous, generous “we” that is the Guernica community. The question was, who would we pay?

Our editors have always been writers themselves, a team of people who know the struggle of trying to make ends meet while making meaning of the world. So when our unpaid editors were asked, “Who should get paid, you or your writers?” they said, “Our writers.”

Now, Guernica is in its 19th year. We don’t pay much, as our contributors know. Even when we raise our rates, as we’ll do this year, we fall so short of what we wish we could do. We know our writers can make much more money elsewhere. We’re humbled and gratified that they work with us; we’re honored by the many writers who’ve told us their Guernica publication helped launch or accelerate their careers; and we hope that we will always offer some of the best editorial collaboration emerging and established writers can find.

To make a Guernica that pays its writers, we, its staff, are all still working for free. Our leadership is working hard to change that, but it’s a long, long road. In the meantime, we’re doing the best we can with the resources we have. Those resources include the labor and talents of people who are able to share their time and creative vision with us, and who want to — people who love and are able to help us make this beautiful, impossible magazine. We know that isn’t everyone. But we hope to keep making a magazine that honors what its writers and editors are able to share.

We welcome those of you who are able to join us; we hope that the day isn’t too far off when we can do more for those of you who’d need more. And we’re racing as fast as we can toward the day when we can pay the team that makes this great magazine according to their value, not our limitations.

We appreciate all of you reading us, loving us, and caring for the integrity of our staff and contributors.