One increasingly undeniable fact about digital publishing is that it’s going multimedia. Anymore, text is the axle of a wheel whose spokes are images, songs, audio clips, maps, videos… The interaction between these components creates an immersive experience for the reader, a sort of total sensory immersion in the story.
The Atavist is at the forefront of this new wave of publishing, and we at Vela were thrilled when several months ago we were invited to use its digital publishing platform for our stories. This would offer us the opportunity to respond to popular reader demand for maps (they’re finally here! Ubicate yourselves!), and to experiment with conveying the sense of place so central to our stories in increasingly dynamic and multi-dimensional ways.
Today, we’ve published “The Rider’s Prayer,” the first of a new series of Vela stories. It takes you to the Mexican rodeo – called jaripeo – in Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte, where you’ll confront life and death in the rodeo ring, watch man grapple with bull, meet the boy with seven lives, and witness the pink-pantsuited Fresnitos.
We will continue to publish our regular weekly features and blog posts: these stories are extras, special additions that expand the realm of what Vela does and is. We hope you’ll explore and enjoy them. Happy reading!
