Cover Photo: Jennifer Wheatley-Wolf

Editor’s message

I am eating black licorice, that somewhat sinister-looking, pungent imposter of a candy. My daughters laugh off my offer to share; the acrid oils of this treat are not for them. The bitter flavor of anise fills my nostrils and lacquers my tongue. I eat another, and another. 

It is easy to love that which is sweet, that which is beautiful. It takes a chosen focus, an act of will to embrace the strange, the unusual, the distasteful for even a short time. To do so makes us vulnerable. We risk revealing that piece of ourselves that is compelled to taste the pungence, the bitterness that seasons our closest relationships, our most vivid memories, our secret fears.

Yet, once we sample, once we swallow the bitter treat, we cannot resist another taste; we crave the flavor of the inherent risk. We become fascinated with the foreign. We even come to love with whole heart that which we have been told to abhor.

In this issue, Scribble’s authors explore those rough edges of truth and beauty that can lead to both exhilarating joy and debilitating fear. They test the limits of conscience, plumb the depths of true passion, and embrace the sting of human brutality. They confront what is ugly, but also sing with the voice of truth that reminds us of compassion, of love, of our better selves.