Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

Welcome To Our Sample Issue

Here we illustrate our publication design using previously published pieces by our three editors. Each publication is presented with two companion pieces, ranging from a 1950s magazine advertisement to a Rumi poem. We will publish our first issue September 1, 2020. Submissions are open year-round.

Only Now | Suzanne Farrell Smith

colorful patchwork skirt

Only Now

Only now, as you stand center of an aisle carpeted royal blue, where you and your older sisters, styled by mother in hand-sewn dresses to match her own, once trailed like ducks down the narrow river, bearing Communion on days Mass was dedicated to your dead father;

Only now, while the oldest, behind you, corrals her children, and the second stands to the side … Read more

two plastic baby dolls alone in two separate cribs

Skinner’s Wife’s Box | Claire Guyton

Skinner’s Wife’s Box

When a crisp graham cracker falls through the slot and into her waiting hands, she gasps, does a little dance. It might have been an apple. Or a celery stick. Or a kosher pickle. Or a radish. It might have been nothing. Or too much something, like a whole head of cabbage or a meatloaf. A graham cracker is precisely what she wants and she exults in it, puts it to her nose and takes deep, luxurious whiffs as she walks to the back wall … Read more

In Its Distance | Cheryl Wilder

east coast USA lights at night against dark ocean

In Its Distance

They are so like love, hurricanes.
First the rising tide and long wait on shore

then the whirlwind’s whistle, ripping trees
and the roof tiles peel off spiraling

to reach someone I left
years ago. He liked to feed me

from his fork, eyes watching with intrigue
every morsel enter my mouth

over my tongue. This matters … Read more