Archives for February 2021

February 13, 2021 By Claire Guyton

Rauh Family Shout-Out

pencil drawing of woman sleeping and feeling connected to the outside ocean and cliffs

The first piece we accepted at Waterwheel Review was “Forgive the Form,” by Christina Rauh Fishburne. We three editors shared the giddy moment on the phone, delighting in the revelation of our first author’s name when we clicked “accept” in Submittable. Christina was just as excited when she set our mill in motion with her reply: “Forgive the Form is yours!”

Not content with one first, Christina quickly delivered another. We would publish her work with two companion pieces, we’d told her, and we welcomed any suggestions. “My brother is musician Charlie Rauh and he would love to write a companion piece of music if that would work!”

aged-looking scrolls lettered with a folktale

If that would work? Our vision for Waterwheel Review had led, already, to exactly the kind of collaboration and community-building we’d fantasized about. I laughed with joy when I read that understatement. Why, yes, Christina, that would work very well.

“Until the Charm Fades” came to us a few days later. I must have listened to it fifteen times, reveling in every note. And now… here we are again. The mill keeps turning, there is yet another talented Rauh sibling, and Christina logs another Waterwheel Review first: A contributor shout-out.

It is our absolute delight to shout about another collaboration connected to the one sparked by our publication of “Forgive the Form.” Today Charlie Rauh celebrates the pre-release of his EP, “The Silent Current from Within.” As with “Until the Charm Fades,” which is included in this newest album, “Silent Current” is a family affair. The piece is inspired by the work of Anne Bronte, Anne Carson, and sister Christina, and the music in turn inspired another sibling project.

Charlie asked his brother Chris to write a folktale based on the music and writings, and he asked Christina to create a map based on the folktale’s details of landscape and setting. Check out the pre-release of the EP by Destiny Records. Charlie tells us there will be a limited run of packages that include the album art, an individually crafted map, a handwritten excerpt of the folktale, and a PDF of the complete tale.

medieval-looking map inked onto a scroll

I love everything about this project. The line from the Bronte siblings to the Rauh siblings; the spiraling out of vision and collaboration; the leaping from one art form to another and back again. In a time of enduring disconnection, when all of us are suffering one kind of loss or another, when even those of us who have stayed well and mostly whole are beginning to fray…. Well. We can still make beautiful things. And share in the joy of it.

Claire Guyton

February 1, 2021 By Cheryl Wilder

Editor’s Note Issue #6

February 2021

Editor’s Note

Our February authors have me thinking of water.

Water is supple and strong. Nourishing and precarious. Its constant movement erodes—snowmelt in spring, ocean waves breaking on shoreline, or the downpour we see in CG Miller’s writing—where beauty and friction meet.

A watershed helps to direct water, a ridge of land that separates the flow of groundwater into creeks, basins, or oceans. Bill Vernon speaks to the mysteries of water luring a young boy to dream and discover. A place where hopping, slithering, and swimming thrive. Where a night chorus of insects and amphibians remind us there is magic in the world.

I’m also thinking of the transformative power of a watershed moment, like the long-awaited return of a loved one in Stephanie Friedman’s piece—a crossroads where a woman is steadfast in what she wants.

This journal’s name derives from “The Waterwheel” by Rumi, a thirteenth-century Sufi poet. When I first read the poem back in 2015, the lines, “Stay here, quivering with each moment / like a drop of mercury” explained what I wanted readers to experience.

I read Rumi’s poem differently today, after eleven months of the unbelievable stress, exhaustion, and uncertainty endured by so many of us. There’s a greater responsibility to his words, “The waterwheel accepts water / and turns and gives it away, / weeping.”

I speak for all of us at Waterwheel Review when I say, “We accept. We give away. We weep.”

Cheryl Wilder