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.

Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

By

Editor’s Note | Issue #8

April 2021

Editor’s Note

suzanne farrell smith headshot

I live with my husband and three young sons on the gentle eastern slope of a valley cut through by a creek. The western hill climbs steep and is overspread with boulders carried by an ancient glacier. Stone tossed against stone creates cracks and holes; one triangle crevasse is so deep and dark, we call it the bear cave. It is spring, and my sons tell me the bear will come out soon.

Primarily a creative nonfiction writer, I am motivated by the origins of the verb form of “essay”: to try. I believe literature, unlike much informational and theoretical writing, does not solve so much as it attempts to capture in words ineffable parts of the human experience. Literature does not promise a destination; rather, it creates a new form of transport, a “line of words,” as Annie Dillard says, that moves us to surprising places. Literature may take us on an adventure up a hill to a crack in the granite, where we find shelter, sense daylight, and emerge when hungry.

Our April authors pry open these cracks for me. I find myself entering and re-entering their writing to feel around for what’s there, to witness what comes to light. In Kitty Jospé’s “Where Love Needs No Proof,” a chance meeting results in a single touch, and with it, the narrowest sliver of hope. In Jonie McIntire’s “After You’ve Saved a Life,” out of silence comes a ring, and a voice in need reaches a voice that can help. And in Dawn Denham’s “A Brief History of Blue,” mud wasps nest on a blue porch, the porch hugs a house, and out of that house materializes a reassembled life.

Our companions this month lead me to surprises as well. The son of two former slaves becomes an icon of the American folk music revival, often writing songs in the aftermath of tragic river floods. A Greek immigrant uses elemental color to create vibrant images that seem to dance on the page. A tower of humans balances upon the strength of one, on the soles of his feet, simply to show that it’s possible, that it’s beautiful. And hidden inside blustering Tweets, we find, of all things, love.

Last week, the first wasp made its way through my attic vent. The first stinkbug buzzed through the hole in our screen door. The first tulips pushed through the mulch by the fence. It is April, and with these tiny births—encounters and phone calls and houses, wasps and tulips and awakening bears—the world is made new.

Suzanne Farrell Smith