Everything has an edge, that definitive line that denotes the end. It’s the precipice, the farthest you can go before the medium changes: land to air, sidewalk to road, life to death. But this issue is not about the end.

The editorial adventure of The Fringe Issue is more about borderlands, the cultural fray, getting away from the mainland and as close as you can to the terminus without dropping in. At this outpost, there can be breaking apart, discord, mutation, transformation, and as the saying goes, “the beginning of the end,” where you encounter radical thought, artistic adventure and new ways of thinking.

The fringe is freedom, like the best party ever somewhere around midnight, just an hour or so before everyone starts to leave. A place continually in flux, mountain-culture regions are made up of people transfixed by this want to move with verve and passion, even a little trepidation mixed with courage. Moving from town to wilderness, one distinct idea to the next, creation to experience, you flirt with the edge, but don’t quite jump in.

Until you do. But that’s another story.

Enjoy Issue #32.

—Mitchell Scott, editor-in-chief