The Unwritten Quarterly is a literary magazine dedicated to the fabrication of life. Although it might seem like different characters write the individual articles, they can with equal possibility have been authored by one and the same. The editor of the magazine, Bernardo Soares (in actuality one of Fernando Pessoa’s many heteronyms) writes in his editorial letter:
I once created a writer, whom I used as a tool, so that I could eventually make myself into nothing. I made myself into nothing so that I could become everything and everyone. I am several, am many, I am a profusion of selves. In the process I may have lost myself. But what I really gained was the possibility of becoming anyone.
The Unwritten Quarterly contains articles, reportage, obituaries (including my own), as well as a book review of a novel that is yet to be written. Even though they take different forms, the theme will always revolve around the idea that fiction lives right amongst us.
Bernardo Soares is a darker version of myself. Like him, I also believe that there are metaphors more real than actual people; there are images more vivid than many men and women; and there are literary phrases that create livelier reactions than any physical encounters. And to visualize the contradictory and inconceivable is one of life’s great triumphs. And like Bernardo Soares, I sometimes dream of the ability to stitch all of my dreams together into a false life that I can suffer and enjoy. Nothing in this world would be real, not even myself, but everything would have a sublime logic of falseness.
I am in fact the author of all the articles in The Unwritten Quarterly. But they are deeply inspired by the literary characters I reference. To put that in print hurts me, and to explain myself I would once more like to quote the editor of the magazine:
I will forever be obsessed in creating a false world. And when I meet my imaginary friends (…) then I am fulfilled. I at times start to cry, but only because I feel genuine happiness. Soon thereafter my joy turns into tearful rage against God, who created impossibilities. Because I realize that the friends of my dreams (…) will never have a space of their own. At these moments I am overwhelmed by sadness, and I almost panic as I think about all the stories that have never been anywhere but in me.
Download a pdf version of TheUnwrittenQuarterly.