Welcome to a unique installment of my #JELreviews series!
In the past, I exclusively reviewed novels, splitting my reviews into two separate sections: one for those who hadn't read the books, and one for those who had. I was a forgiving reviewer, largely celebrating and contemplating rather than critiquing. One day, perhaps I will return to that format!
Today, I'd like to discuss the first issue of Audi Locus, a new journal featuring poetry, art, and music, recently founded by my dear friends Maudie Bryant and Brandon Bowman. Given my longstanding connection to the editors, we can certainly consider this #JELpromotes as much as #JELreviews, but my opinions and analysis will be no less honest and earnest for my connection!
With that context established, on to #JELreviews!
In the past, I exclusively reviewed novels, splitting my reviews into two separate sections: one for those who hadn't read the books, and one for those who had. I was a forgiving reviewer, largely celebrating and contemplating rather than critiquing. One day, perhaps I will return to that format!
Today, I'd like to discuss the first issue of Audi Locus, a new journal featuring poetry, art, and music, recently founded by my dear friends Maudie Bryant and Brandon Bowman. Given my longstanding connection to the editors, we can certainly consider this #JELpromotes as much as #JELreviews, but my opinions and analysis will be no less honest and earnest for my connection!
With that context established, on to #JELreviews!
Audi Locus: Volume 1, Issue 1
Design The inaugural issue of Audi Locus signals a promising future. Many online journals struggle to both (1) provide contributors with direct links to their work for the purposes of sharing online, and (2) enable the issue to be read easily as a continuous, cohesive unit. Journals tend to prioritize either (a) giving contributors individual pages with unique URLs—impeding a reader's ability to read the issue effortlessly—or (b) housing all works on one page in a cohesive unit, limiting contributors' abilities to direct people to the exact location(s) of their work. Audi Locus strikes a remarkable balance. |
The issue webpage opens with a digital booklet (to be discussed more later) in flipbook form. Mechanically, the flipbook offers a seamless reading experience, with art, poetry, and song laid out as if in print. The PDF also makes a pleasant keepsake for contributors.
Beneath the booklet, Audi Locus provides a linked table of contents. Readers/contributors looking to find or share a specific piece can click on the anchor link to jump right down to any item. For readers looking to enjoy the issue as a cohesive whole, however, it is easy and delightful to scroll continuously down the page, organized to mirror the layout of the PDF.
This melding of priorities within the structural design of the issue ensures that contributors and readers will have their unique needs met. I had a blast skipping around via the anchor links and flipping through the booklet!
Cover art by Whitney Tates ("Waterlogged in Pink") provides a focal point for the issue and a color scheme for the site, uniting both in an ethereal cornflower blue and a muted, heavy pink.
Within the issue, Tates's artwork is paired with the poem "THESE COLOURS" by Devon Webb. Webb's poem begins, "These colours // yours & mine too / pink & blue // on & through"—a satisfying line drawn between the two contributors' visual and written pieces.
The PDF booklet showcases Maudie Bryant's talents as an interior and graphic designer, boasting a calm and clean layout that imbues the contributed works with deserved and professional authority.
Beneath the booklet, Audi Locus provides a linked table of contents. Readers/contributors looking to find or share a specific piece can click on the anchor link to jump right down to any item. For readers looking to enjoy the issue as a cohesive whole, however, it is easy and delightful to scroll continuously down the page, organized to mirror the layout of the PDF.
This melding of priorities within the structural design of the issue ensures that contributors and readers will have their unique needs met. I had a blast skipping around via the anchor links and flipping through the booklet!
Cover art by Whitney Tates ("Waterlogged in Pink") provides a focal point for the issue and a color scheme for the site, uniting both in an ethereal cornflower blue and a muted, heavy pink.
Within the issue, Tates's artwork is paired with the poem "THESE COLOURS" by Devon Webb. Webb's poem begins, "These colours // yours & mine too / pink & blue // on & through"—a satisfying line drawn between the two contributors' visual and written pieces.
The PDF booklet showcases Maudie Bryant's talents as an interior and graphic designer, boasting a calm and clean layout that imbues the contributed works with deserved and professional authority.
Content
The issue opens with the poem "morning" by Julie Allyn Johnson—a new dawn for a new journal. It concludes with "THESE COLOURS," previously mentioned, a poem that ends with the word "new," reinforcing my experience of the issue's themes as a contemplation of beginnings, forays, assays, ventures, entrances into the unknown. The poems imagine surreal and dangerous worlds, present scenarios and possible outcomes, often circling back to the prospect of hope, of crossed fingers, of daring leaps. The poems tackle hard and sweet topics at turns.
The contributed poems range from contrapuntal to lyrical to narrative to rhymed, establishing anaphora, alluding to myth, and entering into conversation with the poetic canon. These poems seek connection, seek answers, seek safety.
In her editor's note opening the inaugural issue, Maudie Bryant writes, "[A]rt has a way of grounding us, even in uncertainty. Curating this issue became an anchor—a way to make sense of the chaos, find beauty in the mess, and celebrate our shared human experience."
Co-editor Brandon Bowman adds, "I believe that we as creatives share pieces of ourselves to expand our own edges, to grow, to change, to challenge, and to persevere."
In its first issue, Audi Locus reckons with the travails of existence—and in response, it defends the triumph of the attempt, any attempt, to step forward.
The contributed poems range from contrapuntal to lyrical to narrative to rhymed, establishing anaphora, alluding to myth, and entering into conversation with the poetic canon. These poems seek connection, seek answers, seek safety.
In her editor's note opening the inaugural issue, Maudie Bryant writes, "[A]rt has a way of grounding us, even in uncertainty. Curating this issue became an anchor—a way to make sense of the chaos, find beauty in the mess, and celebrate our shared human experience."
Co-editor Brandon Bowman adds, "I believe that we as creatives share pieces of ourselves to expand our own edges, to grow, to change, to challenge, and to persevere."
In its first issue, Audi Locus reckons with the travails of existence—and in response, it defends the triumph of the attempt, any attempt, to step forward.
Next Call
Submissions for Volume 1, Issue 2 of Audi Locus open April 1, 2025.
The editors intend to announce their first theme by March 15, 2025.
Good luck to all!
The editors intend to announce their first theme by March 15, 2025.
Good luck to all!