Counterpoint magazine features the creative writing and visual art of the Wingate University community. In 1969 English Professor Sylvia Little-Sweat founded Counterpoint, with Professor Louise Napier as art editor. Professor Tom Teer was associate faculty literary editor for a few years, and then Professor Maurice Thomas became long-time faculty co-editor. Professor Taura Napier became faculty literary editor in 2005 and serves with Mrs. Charlene Bregier as art editor. Becky Boulton (B.F.A. 2013) is the design editor. Past student editors include Kristen Bartlett, writer for Saturday Night Live and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee; and Kerrin Sheldon, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker. This 53th issue of Counterpoint is dedicated to its original editor Sylvia Little-Sweat, who still teaches at Wingate University.

Editor’s Note

Write your heart out. It doesn’t matter if the words are ugly from the harsh truths of this world. From the fragility of the human soul. Not everything is going to be beautiful when you write your heart out. I don’t expect perfection—a neatly written piece of paper that is suitable for grading. “Writing perfectly” is such a waste of the imagination, of all the things felt that we cannot explain but use all the words we know to try. Because, why do we write, truly? To be able to breathe. To live. To understand the mind. To make sense of the heart. To have a friend and faithful listener: the ink and the paper. For it will hear the loudest, silent screams. It will absorb the tears from your eyes, forever holding them. The blue lines stagger out of place as the water spreads, sometimes smudging the ink. Write your heart out. It’s the reason you were born. Your way to make the world listen. When you write to me, I feel every molecule in my body come alive. My brain is on fire. My heart feels as though it will leap from my chest. You, my friend, have an inkheart. And my, is it beautiful scattered along the pages in black and white.

Savannah Phillips

Student Editor, Counterpoint