Margarita Donnelly, Director, has called 1996 "The year from HECK". It began with the news that CALYX would receive the Oregon Governors Art Award. But CALYX, along with other feminist presses, was experiencing declining revenues and declining grant support. In February the so-called hundred-year flood hit Corvallis — and Margarita's home — with force. Editorial work on the 20th Anniversary Anthology was often set back due to landslides, floods, and highway closures that prevented the editorial staff from getting to meetings.

In spring the staff met and collectively decided to cut all positions in half to conserve funds; everyone agreed to stay on, even if they had to take second jobs elsewhere.

In the next months the staff continued to write grants, to release two new books and journal issues, to organize fundraising events, and to participate in book shows. The new novel Into the Forest began receiving rave reviews.

In November, a large grant request which had taken much effort was sent back to be rewritten and resubmitted in 1997. More heavy rain crashed into Corvallis. Then, Bantam Books in New York bought the publishing rights to Jean Hegland's Into the Forest, with CALYX keeping movie and foreign rights.

The sale allowed the staff to go back on regular hours and provided some room for modest raises. The CALYX women could begin the new year with a new commitment to discovering and publishing excellent art and literature by women.

The founding mothers started CALYX with a great deal of talent and volunteer hours, but not a lot of money. From the beginning the CALYX women have had to combine their journal editing with fund raising. The issues and contributors to the CALYX journal and the authors of the CALYX books have won many awards and accolades from readers. But through the past 22 years the editors and volunteers have had to struggle for funding for the press at the same time they have provided the special care and commitment needed to produce the quality publications. The editors have at times invested their savings, signed personal notes, and risked their credit ratings as they continue their insistence on producing beautiful, diverse, serious issues of women's literature and art.