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 Notebook: Our Homepage Triptychs

Editor’s Notebook: Our Homepage Triptychs

April 2022

We always knew Waterwheel Review would be fully a child of the internet, an online magazine that would make use of and celebrate multimedia. We wanted to support and expand on each piece we published by presenting it with companion art, knowing the web would provide: paintings; photographs; music and singing; videos of dance and other performances, presentations, and compositions. We also knew it would take a great deal of focused energy and attention to select appropriate companion pieces, then get the design of each issue just right. To ensure we could deliver, we’d need to strictly limit the number of pieces we publish each issue. The right number, we decided, was three.

Next, we settled on the number of companions for each publication: two. If we presented more than two, the design would look like a chain or a grouping, inevitably the connections loosening and draining the intimacy between publication and art. With just two, each companion sits next to the star piece of writing—or, more precisely, the excerpted beginning of the publication, which links to the full text, in turn presented alone so the eye can focus on the writing. One companion wouldn’t be intimate enough; we like the sense of embrace that comes from companions left and right. Again, we rely on the power of three: One publication plus a companion on each side make a triptych.

Developing the three triptychs for each issue is a serious labor of love for all of us, and feeds our connection to every Waterwheel Review publication. We are very attached to all of them. But yes, of course, we have our favorites, though that’s a big group—we reviewed our archives for this post, fueling texts and emails gushing about no fewer than eleven of the fifty-one total triptychs we’ve produced. It was very difficult to whittle our favorites to just one each, and the process yielded small surprises. A couple of our favorite companions, for example, aren’t part of our chosen triptychs, which, again, speaks to the power of three.

Note that before each reflection on the chosen triptych, you’ll see an image of the triptych as it appeared on our homepage. In the reflection, we’ve linked each of the original two companions so you can see them in all their glory.

triptych for Philosophy of the Dance

Claire’s favorite: For “Philosophy of the Dance,” by Brooke Middlebrook, Issue #11

I love the softness of the background, which frames the hardness of the video of the rotoscope image superimposed on the dancer. This effect demonstrates just how difficult ballet is—the required angles, geometry, and quickness of movement are extraordinary. The x-ray of the foot en pointe echoes the hardness of the rotoscope effect, showing in stark relief the structure necessary to endure the pressure on the dancer’s body as she performs with such balance and grace. And I so love the opening two lines of the publication. The narrator asks if her form is correct, initiating a back-and-forth throughout the piece that reflects the delicate balance of form and grace in dance.

It's Possibile My Number Once Belonged to Your Deceased Loved One triptych

Suzanne’s favorite: For “It’s Possible My Number Once Belonged to Your Deceased Loved One,” by Peggy Hammond, Issue #12

While the birds in the painting “Detachment from Reality” can be interpreted as what’s being missed, I like to think of them as messengers connecting the woman to far-flung loved ones, perhaps to the loved one in Peggy’s piece, who now exists outside of time and place, as untethered as her caller. William Utermohlen’s “Head 1,” a self-portrait sketched late into Alzheimer’s, also shows a man out of time and place. Both pieces are set against the background rendering of global communication, which erases time and place, and leaves us staring at a small box, witnessing the world.

image triptych for "Release and Hold Harmless"

Cheryl’s favorite: For “Release and Hold Harmless,” by Lucy Wilde, Issue #15

I’m drawn into this triptych by the title, “Release and Hold Harmless,” floating with the lanterns in the background, symbols of releasing and holding hope, grief, or renewal. In the photo to the left, the woman at the window almost begs to be released. The still of the animated image to the right is intriguing because it’s abstract and yet intimate—it looks like it might be the mirror image of the woman at the window, a rendering of what she’s feeling—and I’m pulled in by the title “Thought of you” and want to click play. The dark and muted colors of both companions nicely complement the text in the center, immediately recognizable as part of an agreement or contract, binding all this hope for release into something stark and concrete. 

That’s the best we can do to convey why we feel so drawn to these three triptychs. Tomorrow, we might settle on three different favorites. Next week, another three.

—Claire Guyton