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: On Birds

Editor’s Notebook: On Birds

February 2024

dark reds orange, yellow of a sunrise over rooftops and power lines with silhouettes of birds in flight

I have a new toy, something I’ve wanted ever since moving to a valley in the woods: a wildlife camera, this one trained specifically on birds. Bamboo box with two vertical seed channels, extended perch, and recessed, solar-powered camera. It promises to “blend into nature.” 

Each morning, my young sons and I open the app to view who’s visiting (a male Northern Cardinal usually arrives just before sunrise). Each afternoon, we look through the moments captured and recorded throughout the day, laughing at how mourning doves squabble. Each evening, we personify: the red-bellied woodpecker looks so satisfied with himself; that tufted titmouse is clearly thanking us for the refill; our Carolina wren is braving her shyness to enjoy scrumptious sunflower seeds. We learn from the birds something about ourselves: the songbird seems timid, yet he dives in. When do we hesitate? How might we take flight? What’s the reward? 

By bedtime, of course, I remind myself that the birds are birds, doing what they’ve done for ages longer than we’ve been here. What lesson should we—readers, writers, humans navigating the natural and unnatural world—take with us, without asking birds to be teacher? 

I was struck by how birds play a role in all three of our February pieces, teaching from a distance. Each blends into nature. Seemed a sign of a sort, that just as my backyard friends were rendered close and clear, writing appeared that is equally close and clear. I wanted that connection. I believed I willed it into being.

Gretel Ehrlich says to look at nature as an invitation to be what we are: I wonder if what we are, as humans and at heart, in the end and always, is hungry.

—Suzanne Farrell Smith