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

Submit

Our Guidelines

Waterwheel Review is currently closed for submissions.

We hope authors will take advantage of our refusal to define what we publish, and send us un-name-able bits and pieces. A fiction that has no shape but feels complete and leaves a hole in your stomach; a nonfiction layered in obvious lies; a recipe that works like a poem. But if you’re looking for a home for a sonnet or a realist short story, or any piece that happens to wear a traditional outfit, we want to see it. If the writing is fresh, artful, and engaging, if we’re moved (to cry, to clench a fist, to laugh), we want it.

We publish three short pieces of original written work on the first of the month (September through May), each presented with two companions to the publication. The companion pieces are items chosen by the editors (possibilities include visual art, photo, video, or quotation) or solicited (a piece of art created by a colleague in reaction to the publication, or the answer to an author question posed by the editors). Once an agreement to publish is in place, authors should feel free to suggest or offer companion pieces, although final selection remains at the discretion of the editors. Please review our current issue to get a sense of what we like to publish and how companion pieces support the work.

Submission Notes—Please Carefully Review

  • Our word limit is 1,602 (not including title). Please note the word count underneath your title.
  • We consider only one piece at a time, whether 162 words or 1,602.
  • We will not consider any submission that includes identifying information anywhere in the piece, including in the name of your file or any headers or footers.*
  • Please do not indicate the genre of your piece anywhere in your submission (again, including the name of your file or any headers and footers).
  • We take submissions at Submittable and are open year-round.
  • We do NOT accept previously published work.
  • We welcome simultaneous submissions and ask only that you withdraw your piece immediately, through Submittable, if it is accepted elsewhere.

*Your cover letter, of course, will include your name and contact information, but editors will read your cover letter only after we have read and made a decision about the work.

If you haven’t heard from us in three months, please query us at wwreditors@gmail.com.

Publication Rights

Authors retain all rights and copyright to their work. We request first-time worldwide online publication rights and nonexclusive reprint/anthology rights should we choose to produce a print issue or anthology. We also request the right to digitally archive your published piece at our site indefinitely, and the right to use excerpts of your published piece in our promotional materials. If the work is republished, we ask that Waterwheel Review is noted as the first place of publication. Note that we do not provide contracts; by submitting to us you are agreeing to the above terms.

Submissions Summary

Reading
Period

Year-Round

Response
Time

3 Months

Submission
Method

Submittable

Simultaneous
Submissions

Accepted

Word
Limit

1,602

Genres
Accepted

No Labels