Locala Magazine, June 2023

I feel as though it were just yesterday that I sat down to write and tell you about our first-year anniversary, and yet, here we are a year later already. It’s our second anniversary and officially the start of our third volume (refers to the number of years the publication has been circulated).

Locala’s first issue came out in June 2021, and it was a bumpy start. I had been publishing a bi-monthly food magazine, and as Locala was beginning, The Chews Letter was retiring. I went from writing recipes and fact-based articles to stripping away the mask of members of my community.

It took a few issues before I felt Locala found its voice. In 2022, I felt that the voice needed to be louder. You, the readers, needed to hear the stories from the mouths of people telling them. You needed to share in the tears and laughter. Fortunately, technology made it possible, and the Locala podcast was born in September.

Now, as we celebrate our second anniversary and begin this third volume, the voices of the past and the future can be heard. This issue is like no other issue, and I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it! As you flip through the pages, you won’t find many full-length stories. In fact, you’ll only find one full-length story in the Artist Corner (page 25). You will instead find short descriptions of the interviews.

That’s because we called back guests from past issues to join us in the podcast studio. We asked them to catch us up on what they’ve been up to since their article came out and what their future may hold. We asked some of them to recount parts of their original stories, so you could hear it directly from their mouths.

If you are a subscriber to our printed edition, all you’ll need to do is scan the QR code or type in the link to watch the episodes. Our digital edition will have the videos embedded into the magazine, and you’ll only need to click play on the thumbnails to watch. Don’t worry if you prefer to listen to our stories via your favorite podcast app. We’ll be releasing episodes from this issue every week for the entire month.

I hope you enjoy this very special publication, as we touch base with some of those first-year interviewees. Thank you for all your support over the last two years! Here’s to many more anniversaries to come!

Best Regards,