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: Don’t be so greedy! Maybe.

Editor’s Notebook: Don’t be so greedy! Maybe.

March 2023

shiny gold wrinkle texture

I’ll say it again: Life is short and getting shorter.

Last month, I mentioned that I’ve been gorging on post-pandemic PLANS. What I didn’t say is that all this activity is in the service of my current writing project, which, lately, I’m daring to call a book. I’m still in overdrive, both with regard to my calendar and writing. Every new experience and crowded page is deeply satisfying but I’m hungry for the next and the next after that and the next again. And I’m starting to wonder if Greed is driving me. At least in part. Greed for validation? Readers? Recognition?

Well, I hope so. Because as Suzanne points out in her essay on writerly Greed, the latest in our 7 Sins of the Writing Life series, it’s a sin that can breed success. I’ll let her say more about how that might work. Here, I’ll share thoughts on writerly Greed from my friend Lisa Mayer, who answered the questions Suzanne posed to a few writer friends in preparation for her essay.

What, if anything, do you feel most Greedy for? Name recognition? Earnings? Contest wins? Ongoing book deals? Solicitation of your work (i.e., lack of need to submit)?

OK, I’ll be nakedly greedy: I want to be David Sedaris. There. I said it. 

I want to write my funny little memoirs and POOF! My team—agent, publisher, publicist, and personal snack maker—sends me on the road for six months every year to perform them. Across the country, and then around the world. No hustle, no mustle.

Even five months. Four. Three.

I am SO ready.

Then I call my mother, and read her my latest. And she laughs and laughs until she cries. She forgets her troubles. And that’s enough for me.

Maybe that’s my problem.

Does Greed ebb and flow as writers move through different life stages?

Oh yes. When I was 22, I started in the Advertising Biz in New York City, and there was crazy greed among the writers to be the one to come up with THE BIG IDEA. To be poached by a cool boutique agency and become Creative Director and make THE BIG BUCKS. We still reminisce on Facebook about the good old Madison Avenue days.

I can’t believe I was ever 22.  

Now my greed is pitted against TIME, the scythe, dementia. I’m desperate to get it all down, get it all out. Stories, plays, songs, operas lately and a million-zillion memories. I wake up every morning, and lay awake every night, bulging with ideas. 

It’s a curse.

Do you think you could ever be satisfied as a writer?

Well, that’s a hard no.

Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your Greed with us! I’m sorry you feel cursed but it’s a sorry-not-sorry, because I’m glad for whatever drives you to write and share more of your stories.

Next stop: Wrath.

May you indulge and enjoy all writing sins forevermore. And may you write well today.

—Claire Guyton