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

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Editor’s Notebook: The Power of “I”

Editor’s Notebook: The Power of “I”

September 2022

Rakotz bridge (Rakotzbrucke, Devil's Bridge) in Kromlau, Saxony, Germany. Colorful autumn, reflection of the bridge in the water create a full circle

I like to use this feature either to peek behind the editorial curtain, as when I put together a piece on our favorite issue quotes last May; or to revisit and celebrate a previously published piece (as I did here). I look forward to doing both of these things in the coming months, but as September 2022 arrives, opening the door to the glory of our third season of Waterwheel Review—I almost can’t believe I just wrote “third” but here we are, our baby is still bouncing and beautiful, and I’m more in love with her than ever—I want to step more deeply into our process. I want to offer a peek behind the authorial curtain.

We three editors are writers, first. Our friendship community was forged by and for writing, and that’s still our primary focus. Through our decade together, we’ve used many tools to keep each other in tune with our writing lives. In the last year or so we settled on a very simple one to focus our writing energy: I-words.

We each chose an I-word to meditate on, hold in our mind’s eye, float before us every time we sat down to write. The word served as a reminder of what we wanted to accomplish with our writing and in our writing lives. Why an I-word rather than some other letter? I can’t remember but as I write this post, I’m thinking Suzanne, who I’m sure suggested this exercise, was clever to choose the one letter that also happens, in English, to constitute a word that stands for personhood. No surprise she’s the nonfiction writer among us. She thinks deeply about the “I” every time she writes.

We chose Ignite, Integrate, Intend.

Did it work? Like any tool, yes and no. I’ll just speak for myself and admit that I have until recently done very little writing throughout the pandemic, and the smallness of my efforts was beginning to take a very serious toll. More and more this year I was feeling the way I always feel when I go too long without writing anything of substance—fractured, unfocused, uninterested. But I pulled out my I-word here and there, opened a Word file … and, eventually, what do you know. Ignition. I am now fully immersed in a writing project conceived while meditating on my I-word, and, as always before, my almost daily writing practice is my salvation.

And now here we are; the Maine sky has begun to take on that saturated blue of September, and there’s a hint of chill in the morning air. I do relish opening the door to this third season. We’re back! And we need new words.

We are writers, first, and by necessity. Our drive to discover and spotlight fine, moving, unique work is born entirely of our reverence for every aspect of writing as makers. This project of crafting art with words … we just can’t get enough of it. But it’s clear to all of us that the wheel has to keep turning. If all the water flows in one direction only, under and through the wheel, from us and into the magazine—none lifted by the turning blades, none coming back to us—then there is no replenishing and the source runs dry.

In renewed understanding of how important it is that we nourish ourselves and each other as writers so that we can step up with enthusiasm and energy as editors, I suggested we select new I-words for our new season: Our 20th or so season as writers, our 10th or so season in writing community, and our 3rd season as co-editors. All—writing, community, editing—linked and replenished by the waterwheel.

Our new words: Invent. Invest. Intensify.

Welcome to Season Three.

—Claire Guyton

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From the Editors | Issue #19

September 2022

From the Editors

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. —Stephen King

three middlge-aged women taking a selfie

In Issue 19 a song goes to the moon, the night becomes the jealous watcher of a cat—“black skim of spine and sleek head”—and the phrase “scarred bell and brain” captures a lifetime of fractured relationship. Heidi Kasa, Rosemary Jones, and Ted Mc Carthy usher in this third season of Waterwheel Review with textured, lyric work that speaks to what time eventually takes—our ambition, our health; but reminds us, too, of what remains from one generation to the next, from one civilization to the next, to give us meaning and purpose. Reminds us? No. Celebrates. This issue’s guiding quotation—“Time takes it all,” says Stephen King—works like a sad song that lifts us from grief because it makes us sing. King’s words tell us to stay in this moment, this art. Be present. While you sink into that sentence and the next and the next … there is no time.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

Join Our Growing Community

We’re in our third season here at Waterwheel Review, and we couldn’t be happier. But we have big dreams. Right now we have two ways—in addition to being an author or maker—to be a part of our labor of love.

1. Sign up for our newsletter.

You’ll know when each issue goes live and learn news about WWR and our authors.

*We promise never to sell or share your information. We hate spam as much as you do. For more info, read our full Privacy Policy.

2. Support literature without labels.

All expenses are out of pocket. Any help goes to our submissions manager and media. We would LOVE to one day pay authors, hold contests, speak at conferences… (slow down, deep breath). Thank you for supporting literature and art!

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Editor’s Notebook: Our Homepage Quotes

Editor’s Notebook: Our Homepage Quotes

May 2022

“View from the shore of Lake St. Clair, Tasmania” by Christian Bass via Unsplash.

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):

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. —J.R.R. Tolkein

I love the colloquial diction and the soft and rhythmic syntax. How it begins with the lofty, “All we have to decide,” as if decisions were easy, as if deciding what to do with one’s time, which measures into one’s life, is simple. As if everyone has such luxury. The statement ends with the more quotidian, “the time that is given us”—a call to remain present, intentional, like a prayer or meditation. This blend of high-minded with the everyday reminds me that making a life is a matter of ongoing complexity, while on the surface, life often seems like only a matter of which television show to binge-watch. 

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:

Above all, don’t forget. Commit everything—each blade of grass, each teary-eyed child, each unmarked grave—to memory. Then when you survive and are older, tell your story. —Andrew Lam (From Issue #5, January 2021)

As a writer without childhood memory, I commit everything—each moment when something feels off, each delightfully funny experience with my children, each surprising image that pops into my mind—to paper. Any and all of it is story. 

The line of words fingers your own heart. It invades arteries, and enters the heart on a flood of breath; it presses the moving rims of thick valves; it palpates the dark muscle strong as horses, feeling for something, it knows not what. —Annie Dillard (From Issue #8, April 2021)

This is why I love to read, for WWR and in general. My heart engages. 

Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. —Frances Hodgson Burnett (From Issue #17, April 2022)

Burnett’s line from The Little Prince comes closest to my idea of the spiritual.

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):

Writing is a form of prayer. —Franz Kafka

My blog post, my decree: We will never do better than that.

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

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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