About us.

Who are we in this vast, consuming world? That, I can’t answer. We each live our own lives. You and I ineffably share inherent traits, and yet have unique quirks—vision, thought, sound, touch. Every particle of our being looks and feels different to every one of us. We’re so similar on the surface, but none of us are truly the same; life is marred by perception. Nobody with your exact ideas, beliefs, passions, or dreams has ever existed, and no carbon copy of you ever will. I do not say this to invoke fear but to inspire. Let this be a wake-up call: your differences are vital to the human experience. Your individuality is a gift, whether you share it is up to you. But at the end of the day, I urge you to branch out. Apply to that job, submit that story, confess to that crush. Because one day, when you’re long dead, a little girl will uncover your brittle bones and your fanciful bards and place herself between the pages of something you wrote decades earlier, something that history could never recall because it’s yours. In a furtive, ephemeral world of Crypto and AI, she’ll breathe in the dust and grit of your morals and muse over all those little things we mere humans never got to share.

Bardics Anonymous is the furthest thing from a formal, established magazine. If you are looking for that, chase the Vogue waitlist. I am sure they would love to have you on their immutable queue. No, this magazine is a free forum of sorts, a place for the shunned and hopeful artists to spill their guts at the feet of lunacy. Let this act as a journal experiment in consciousness, an attempt to note the transient, itinerant, euphemistic thoughts that flow over humanity like an ever-going stream.

I do not want to be blinded by quasi-philosophical arrogance. I understand the struggle that can come with writing, with learning, with fulfilling an education. And so, I can freely admit that I will never have the right to judge one’s submissions the way an editor should. You will find that I rarely turn something down without providing constructive feedback or giving the applicant another go at it. Besides, what is the point of a humanities-driven magazine if it can not advocate for the humans that drive its purpose? It is mentioned on the home page, but I will say it twofold: to understand humanity, we must understand every aspect of it—every gender, every ethnicity, every sexuality, every form of expression. Art can not be dictated by intellect, status, or affluence. There comes a time in one’s education when this conviction is arrived at, and I can not help but hope to be that ember in the ash for you.

I do not care if you are a Harvard graduate or a high school dropout. What matters to me is that you speak what you think now in hard words and with conviction, that you write because you care to, that you publish because you want to. Do not worry about judgment or failure. Surely, these matters will come about eventually, it is only natural. But think, is it so bad to be judged? To be misunderstood? To fail? All the greatest men have been judged, shunned, and ignored. Aristotle was spurned, as was Joan of Arc, and Jesus, and Galileo. Men have been rejected through the centuries, only to be veracious in their claims, and capable of preventing catastrophic destruction. Envy, doubt, disdain—these are all euphemisms for ignorance. Do not get lost in a train of thought that you can never untangle, you will only get yourself eternally trapped in its sliding doors.

This is all to say, again, that taking that leap will always be worth it. Damn the patriarchy, screw what others have to say. Live for yourself. You are, inevitably, your closest companion through this lifetime.

I created this magazine for you. Yes, you. Now it is time for you to choose what to do with that. Not me. Not anyone else. You.

Best wishes from the void,

Skylar B.

Editor-in-Chief