The Austin Bluebonnet was born when an unemployed man reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin at Barton Springs decided that he, too, wanted to contribute to his community using the power of the written word.

Specifically, he wanted to showcase what an exceptionally magical, creative, and dynamic place Austin, Texas, truly is.

For decades, the weird, the wild, and the wonderful have taken root here: musicians, comedians, food truckers, spiritual healers, pit masters, tattoo artists, filmmakers, slackliners, golf ball painters, and pedicab drivers, to name a few. Oh, and writers.

The goal of The Austin Bluebonnet is to tell stories—both real and imagined—about the people and culture of this incredible city. We want this magazine to reflect life in Austin in the present moment, which is often obscured by perennial nostalgia for the way things used to be or disrupted by vague anxieties about what Austin will become.

These stories are a remedy for that, a source of entertainment but also a call to action. If you believe that Austin as it is today is just as special as it ever was, you’ll start to see the wildflowers all around you.