Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

March 1, 2021 By Claire Guyton

Editor’s Note | Issue #7

March 2021

Editor’s Note

John Prine was one of my favorite writers. When he died of Covid, I took a day off to mourn him. As always, I found refuge in his lyrics.

His songs are full of stories that somehow marry goofiness, poignancy, and deep sadness. Despite appreciation for his work, my husband can listen to Prine only in short spurts or he will sink into melancholy. I’m so surprised by this, because it’s the sadness that I appreciate most. Writing that captures our worries and griefs comforts me. No, much more. It buoys me. I rise.

All genuine hardship and loss boil down to the same elemental pain, and no one gets through this life unscathed. How lucky we are to see the proof—in prose, verse, music, painting—that we are not alone with our dark thoughts, this trembling uncertainty, that moment of boiling rage. I am channeled, and so I am heartened and then fortified. Now I’m ready to give it all another go.

As our March issue goes live, I am channeled by Erica Kent’s “The Shut-In,” a piece starring a version of myself I work hard not to be, and I know I am far from alone in that, as the pandemic has shown so many of us. In Danielle Joffe’s “Reduction,” I am heartened by a kind of courage I’ve had to summon myself, as have all the women I know. And “My New York Accent” by Anne Myles fortifies the “I am who I am” confidence we’re all building and rebuilding.

I cried at my last John Prine concert. When he hit the stage, strumming and singing, his age knocked me back, and I knew that he would die before I could see him again. As he performed a rough and speedy version of “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore,” I put my face in my hands and wept. Then I wiped my tears and sank into him and his music, savoring every syllable, every note. Every sad smile.

Claire Guyton