If you visit the website of Beneath the Garden Magazine and click on their mission statement—as most writers who are eager to submit their work do—you will meet a quote from Audre Lorde’s collection of essays, Sister Outsider:
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
If you trail your eyes further down on the page, Lorde is featured again as a way to underline the core motivation of the magazine, interactions with media as the core motivator for art:
“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt…”
These two quotes planted the seeds for Zaira Bardos, Editor-in-Chief of Beneath the Garden, to provide a platform for young, upcoming artists. “I believe the existence of Beneath the Garden matters because there is this idea that we constantly need to have an ‘original thought,’” she explains. “The idea of original thought, I feel, rips away our inspirations from our work. Instead of hiding our inspirations, I wanted to highlight what we writers find inspiration from.”
This independent magazine welcomes writers at every stage of their career to share their work, simply asking that each submission reveal their underlying inspiration. Literature and film are the two main realms that are encouraged to be infused in every piece they receive. The result of this is Bardos’s most cherished goal in creating a creative space: community.
This group of individuals who love art and have an insatiable desire to create from that love was born of friendship. “It started out with me and my friend Katie working together at a publishing press. I had been wanting to work on a magazine that combined literature and film together in one space… Katie and I worked great together, and the fact that I wanted to create a magazine for the longest time, I asked her if she wanted to get it up and running with me,” Bardos reveals.
Three years later, recruiting a team of like-minded creatives—including myself, a genre editor—the rest is history. “… This magazine runs on passion. All the positions here are volunteer work; they are doing this for free and for the love of it all.”
One of the team members is the editorial assistant, Viva Christon, who applied for the position while navigating the publishing industry at the very beginning of her career. “I’ve wanted to make my way into the publishing field since college. My professors always said, ‘This field is competitive,’ but I never truly took it to heart; maybe that cockiness was part of my unsuccess in finding somewhere to get started,” Christon admits.
Suddenly, the pieces fell into place during her interview with Bardos, “When Zaira emailed me for an interview, the first time we spoke, her microphone on Zoom distorted the sound of her voice, making her sound like Darth Vader in my ears… I think that glitch, that moment of ridiculousness, is part of what made our interview go so smoothly. It eliminated the nerves. Perhaps it was then that I knew I was well-matched for this place.”
Christon’s first encounter with the magazine embodies how Beneath the Garden is, first and foremost, a safe space. “Because we are so small, a lot of new writers who have yet to be published or have yet to submit their work before will often seek out our magazine because we don’t care about big names. All we want to see is good writing,” Christon elaborates on the vitality of independent magazines.
This safe space underlines how the creation of art is never streamlined nor clean-cut, as Bardos explains, “Writing can grow anywhere and everywhere! Sometimes an idea pops up through an incredibly shitty film with an amazing quote, an Instagram reel edit of Twilight, or a conversation you were eavesdropping on while drunk outside of a bar. Our writers find these spaces and bring a magnifying glass to incredibly small details that would otherwise be deemed ‘boring’ or unimportant.”
To construct the magazine’s welcoming environment, Bardos and Christon looked first to the relationship between writers and their editors. “For our team, we wrote genre blurbs and mentioned different authors, directors, films, and novels that we are drawn to in the hopes that a writer with similar interests finds us,” Bardos describes the easily-accessible blurbs found on the magazine’s website.
“We show them what we like, what we don’t like, and try to express to people that we offer a personal touch, whereas some of the bigger journals and publishers are very distant and remain anonymous in this process.” Christon further emphasizes the significance of indie literary outlets: “We build confidence in young writers and also make the publishing process a warm and personal experience.”
As Beneath the Garden currently perfects its up-and-coming third issue, there are still many ways to get involved with the community. “BTG is always looking for feedback from our audience, whether that be a DM on our social media or an email,” explains Christon. “We also offer volunteer reader positions for those who want to be involved here and now, and those select people will help us field through our submissions and deliberate as to what fits with our vibe and what does not.”
No matter if they’re preparing to open submissions or gearing up for the publication of an issue, collaboration at every stage is at the forefront of the magazine’s mind. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to us in any capacity! We want to build our community virtually and in person,” Bardos shares. “Many of us are based in different states, and we would love to engage with events or talk with other peeps about our magazine.”
As Beneath the Garden reveals, it’s that the most beautiful thing about indie magazines is the familiarity that grows with their writers and team members, which Christon recognizes in her and Bardos’s leadership. “… The magazine itself is going to be changing and offering some new and exciting things to further connect with readers and writers! Seriously, there is a lot on the horizon, and the team is so excited to share it with our audience.”
Photos courtesy of Beneath the Garden Magazine | Interviewed on April 3, 2026.
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