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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From the Editors | Issue #36

June 2024

From the Editors

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.—John Muir

profile of three women walking on sandy beach in winter

Carry on, that’s what we do. We walk through the door and into a life threatened by illness or accident, diminished by a lost love, broken by if we are most unlucky—God forbid—war. Today we three are fortunate. We do not walk into a life changed by such things but lightly past this ending to our fourth season, this Issue 36 that testifies to those who do. In our first solicited issue, we publish three of our previous authors: Nancy Huggett tells us in “Fractions Are Numbers that Are Not Whole” of “Half-truths falling like seeds into soil.” While “Inbetween,” Annaliese Jakimides shares “Photos of shadow and cloud and fracture.” In Richard Jackson’s “In Its Otherness,” it is “as if our words could send out new beginnings.” That’s exactly what they do, these words, as we move into a summer of catching up with ourselves and our work.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

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From the Editors | Issue #35

April 2024

From the Editors

It was as if, through that one sentence, she had wandered out of the yard of her usual language
and found herself in a different, mysterious, elegant part of town.—Barbara Feinberg

editors Cheryl Wilder, Suzanne Farrell Smith, and Claire Guyton sit in beach chairs on a cold sunny day on a sandy beach

Wander deep into Issue 35 and come upon critters and creatures, lessons and lies, magic and myth. Yet clear-eyed realness flows through the heart of each piece. In Brian C. Billings’s “The Crayfish Ferris Wheel,” a river trip leads to a surprising festival, but what is the price of delightful consumption? The fungi in Faith Allington’s “Xeroseres: A Lesson” know something about us that we may not yet know ourselves. And Gerald Yelle in “The Mood Begins to Shift” encourages us to enjoy the fairy tale: “Don’t come back if you want to know the truth.” Go ahead and take a few wrong turns. Get a little lost. Sit in mystery for a while.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

Join Our Growing Community

We’re in our fourth 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!

Support WWR

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From the Editors | Issue #34

March 2024

From the Editors

The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough. — Colum McCann

The world, insistent, spins. Mid-whirl, we might listen to Victoria Melekian’s entreaty in “How to Embellish an Upper Case V and Not Ruin It”: “Do not bedazzle. Moderation is key.” We stumble on, wondering what happens to all the “roses and ropes and terra cotta pots stained white with minerals” that Kathleen McGookey puzzles over in “Beginning with a Line from Roethke.” Likely we are not meant to know. We are meant only to wonder, “why does time flow one way,” an apt question posed by Claire Scott in “And the Point Is to Live Everything.” The world spins, we stumble and puzzle and wonder, then right ourselves to focus on the task at hand: remember the lost loved one, consider the passage of time, and always, always, execute the perfect V. It is more than enough. 

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

Join Our Growing Community

We’re in our fourth 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!

Support WWR

By

From the Editors | Issue #33

February 2024

From the Editors

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. —Gretel Ehrlich

three middlge-aged women taking a selfie

Our humanness—personas, identities, irritations, opinions, desires—is reflected all around us, in showy sunflowers, razor-sharp icicles, elusive waterhens. Even as we hold nature aloft as mercifully unhuman, we look to the ocean for solace and the creek for an answer. In “Songs,” Malcolm Glass reminds us that all we are, all we have ever been, might echo through bird song; so listen close, because it’s no guarantee. Brendan Todt, in “[As part of the latest interdisciplinary proposal],” shows us that no matter how stridently we left-brain our world, there’s transformative power in being, simply, rooted. And in “Sometimes I Do Not Know If I Should Tell My Children What I Have Seen,” Caroline Canter Triscik wrestles with a reality that might even break a wild animal heart. Nature doesn’t care how we perceive it, yet nature is where we define and redefine, name and resist to name.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

Join Our Growing Community

We’re in our fourth 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!

Support WWR