Waterwheel Review

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From the Editors | Issue #14

January 2022

From the Editors

Truth comes only infrequently and only in flashes. —Pamelyn Casto

screenshot of editors on Zoom call

Truth pushes to the surface from the start of Ron Riekki’s “idiopathic” as well as in “Movement,” by Ace Boggess, two otherwise very different flashes of beauty. The longer “Greenwich Origin Story,” by Joanna Theiss, keeps its truth hidden until the quiet, unspoken end. Each piece signposts radically different human experience, and our companions highlight the contrasts in tone, particularly the two songs. Issue 14 is a game of emotional ping pong. In real life, no thank you. In art? Give me the bounce, the pop, the smash. Give me flight.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

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From the Editors | Issue #13

December 2021

From the Editors

The best way out is always through. —Robert Frost

Moving from the known to the unknown, searching for—and sometimes finding?—a kind of acceptance, a kind of peace; that’s the project of our 13th issue. In Christina Hutchins’s “Traveling through the Vanishing Point,” we drive through the salt flats of Utah and deeply into a pearly Sunday morning’s revelation of life and love everlasting. Breath is the mode of travel in Carlene Gadapee’s guide into the space that holds her narrator’s suspended present—a space between meaningful and meaningless, between everything and nothing. “Breathing Exercises” asks… what do we do in that space? And what do we do, asks Deanna Benjamin, with a friend’s story that has its beginning and end but comes with no closure, no fullness of understanding? Benjamin’s protagonist does her best to accept it. She walks “The Delicate Periphery of Your Crime” and offers whatever support she can. Moving, breathing. Accepting. It’s the only way.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

Join Our Growing Community

We’re just getting started 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!

Support WWR

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From the Editors | Issue #12

November 2021

From the Editors

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou

The leaves have mostly dropped. We’re rummaging for scarves and gloves while a shade or two of melancholy settles into the day’s gaps. The perfect framing, we think, for three sad-sweet pieces about connecting, somehow, through a disconnect. In Peggy Hammond’s piece, the mystery caller’s number is blocked… but the need and hope come through. Madeleine Mysko’s revelation of shared vision between a mother and her grown daughter both startles and soothes. And Kate Senecal’s loyal guard dog stands in for who’s missing and what’s not being said. Easy or fraught, brief or enduring, simple or complicated—it’s a meditation on human connection, this issue. We’re particularly happy to share it now, before the holiday season, in these few weeks of autumn quiet. 

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

Join Our Growing Community

We’re just getting started 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!

Support WWR

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From the Editors | Issue #11

October 2021

From the Editors

None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives. — Jane Austen

Dis-ease, one of us said—Issue 11 is thick with it. Dis-ease through disruption—that’s the source of the energy running through this work. Sherre Vernon in “City Cancels 4th of July” and Brooke Middlebrook in “Philosophy of the Dance” disrupt their own narratives with borrowed text, layering in more meaning with see-sawing voice and tone. So much of the power of Laine Harrington’s “Philippines, 1973” comes from jarring images and word choices that shove attention from one line to another. Subject, form, and diction are so very different, yet all three pieces feel uneasy and out-of-focus, with protagonists always on the edge of one kind of danger or another. Having spent a year and a half, now, more-or-less sheltering in place… our psyches are ready for a little less stillness.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

Join Our Growing Community

We’re just getting started 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!

Support WWR