Editor’s Notebook: Our Homepage Quotes

May 2022

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. —Jean Rhys

Originally, we expected to use this Jean Rhys quote from our inaugural issue (September 2020) as a permanently published inspirational “header” for each issue of Waterwheel Review. But somewhere along the way, one of us suggested we choose a new quote for every issue, and I’m pretty sure we agreed with no need for discussion.

We take turns selecting the quote, and I’m very happy to report that because I accidentally took the first turn by choosing the Rhys quote—I think I included it when I pitched (via email) the idea of this magazine to Cheryl and Suzanne, and it stayed with us as a guiding star as we developed our plans—I will always be blissfully free of the task in our final two months of the (nine-month) season. Because I DO see it as a task, rather than as a joyful opportunity, I always get a little anxious about it. I want to get it right.

What does it mean to get it right? I want the quote I select to speak to the three pieces we’re publishing that month and what we’re hearing in the news and what each of the three of us is experiencing in our lives and say something important and timeless about art and writing. About which—all of which—I always think too much. Until I get tired of thinking about it all and decide instead to think about how I feel about all of these things and reach for a line that sums up that feeling. Maybe. I’m really not sure. I just know I eventually land on something, and I’m always very thankful when Cheryl and Suzanne give me the thumbs up.

I decided not to ask my co-editors, for this post, what their quote-seeking missions are like, and whether they experience anxiety. I’d rather preserve the mystery. In each not-my-turn month, I find myself wondering, as the weeks go by, what sort of tone my co-editor’s chosen quote will have, what element of writing or art-making might be addressed. Will I feel a rush of recognition and hold it close? Or will I take a long look, sigh into it, wonder about it. Sometimes the quote speaks directly to where I am as a writer the day I see it, which feels like a small miracle.

I hope—but I don’t want to know!—that Cheryl and Suzanne don’t worry quite so much about whether they’re getting their quote… right. Anyway they always do.

Much more fun: I asked each of my co-editors to tell us which of our eighteen chosen quotes is her all-time favorite.

Cheryl’s favorite comes from Issue #3 (November 2020):

Suzanne chose four favorites, including the Jean Rhys quote—“This speaks to me as publisher of Waterwheel Review (I will listen, Jean Rhys)”—and the following three:

And my favorite? One that gets it right, of course! Even more right than our inaugural Rhys quote that I will always hold dear. Always right. And it’s from one of my all-time favorite writers, who wrote one of my all-time favorite short stories, “A Hunger Artist.”

I give you the quote Suzanne selected for Issue #2 (October 2020):

To my dear Cheryl and Suzanne, and to our dear (54!) authors, I’m sending all the gratitude and love your way as we close out our second glorious season of Waterwheel Review. May we all keep feeding the lake.

—Claire Guyton

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.

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.

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.

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

Editor’s Notebook: Cover Letters & The Art of Persistence

February 2022

We’ve been thinking a lot about cover letters lately, both because our submissions are growing, so we’re seeing so many more than we were, and because recent submitters are commenting favorably on our issue composition and design. We always share these letters with each other, because little is more thrilling than knowing writers are appreciating and connecting with our vision.

We know many submitters worry about what to put in a cover letter—we’re writers, we’ve been there—but I can’t help with “This letter worked!” advice, because at Waterwheel Review, we don’t see cover letters until after we’ve made a decision on the submission. We have to hit “accept” or “decline” in Submittable before the letter becomes visible. Still, we can promise you there’s one thing that will always go over very well, regardless of when the letter gets read:

Good humor will always make a harried editor happy. Behold below our all-time favorite lines in a cover letter, from Rex Wilder, a poet who just happens to share a last name with one of us, Cheryl Wilder (no relation). Our guidelines ask that submitters offer only one piece at a time (poets are used to sending multiple poems at once) and that they do NOT label the submitted piece in any way, given that our magazine is genre-label-free. Rex:

“I hope I observed the directions correctly, as in only sending one and NOT telling you whether it’s a poem, a photograph, or a hamburger. Genre-neutral you are!”

He then signed his letter with, “All my best, Rex (maybe Wilder than Cheryl; maybe not).”

Rex and Cheryl were acquainted, because he had contacted her before submitting to ask about whether they might be related, and that resulted in a friendly exchange. Because we try to reach out when a revealed cover letter tells us we have just rejected a person we know, just to pass along a personal note of appreciation for the submission and encouragement to submit again, Cheryl told Rex that we loved the tone of his cover letter, and asked if we could use lines from it sometime as an example (predicting this post). Which in turn prompted this cover letter with a subsequent submission:

“I am sorry, but I no longer write cover letters pro bono.” That was the entire letter.

Most authors, even if they happen to know us, aren’t going to feel comfortable being chatty or goofy in a cover letter. We can’t all be Rex! Stick to your own voice. But DO use that voice again.

Thinking about Rex’s cover letters reminded me that we accepted his “canyon market,” which appeared in Issue #10, on his third try. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other authors we accepted on a second or third submission. In this way, please do be like Rex. If we’ve encouraged you to submit again, take that encouragement seriously.

And if you haven’t submitted to Waterwheel Review at all… what are you waiting for?

—Claire Guyton