I Made A Magazine!

I’m not even going to hitch: I’m proud to present to you the first issue of Alayo magazine.

It’s often been said that when life throws you lemons, instead of being bitter, you should use them to make lemonade. Beyonce has a whole album about it too, so there ya go!

That saying is kind of the inspiration behind Alayo. If you’re new here or haven’t read my bio, you can check out the About Me section to see why this name is so important to me. I was feeling wretched about the state of my life and one night, while crying to my friends on our weekly devotional/therapy session calls, they suggested I try to find something positive into which I could channel my energy. We talked about how I’ve always loved magazines and had a collective ‘aha!’ moment. So that very night, I got on Canva.com and started playing around with the various magazine templates on the platform.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been tinkering and tinkering, changing and changing again, adding and removing until everything looked as close as possible to the picture in my head. Today, I’m pleased to share the fruits of our labour with you. I say ‘our’ because although I’m the head cook and bottle washer, my friends also contributed their time and energy (and articles) to help make the finished product truly shine. I also reached out to two other friends who contributed their art as well.

The world is so heavy these days, what with the corornavirus, racism in America and other stressful news dominating the media. I hope Alayo will be a source of light and inspiration for you as you read. Please feel free to share the link with your family and friends and even perfect strangers on social media. You can also download the magazine in PDF here. I’d love for Alayo to reach far and wide and spark joy for a bunch of people all over the world.