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 #28

September 2023

From the Editors

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell the truth. —Oscar Wilde

profile of editors Cheryl Wilder, Suzanne Farrell Smith, and Claire Guyton walking down the North Carolina coastline with calm morning waters and a cloudy sky

During our first three seasons, Waterwheel Review existed as a new journal, our attempt to remove genre labels and supplement writing with all the other art we saw fit to print. With the first issue of Season 4, we recognize our longevity and endurance. Time is behind us and in front of us, our constant challenge, our steadfast friend. Season 4 opens with Deborah Adams in “My Bad,” proclaiming, “I can travel any when.” We happily doubt every word that we lap up as we ride a time wave. That wave sends us to a past/future meditation as Michael Waterson (re)introduces us to a laudable flop in “The Conqueror.” Finally, we land in the surreal “Please Advise,” Christine Aucoin’s telling take on what it means to spring from nothing, exist, and suddenly disappear.

—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 #27

May 2023

From the Editors

From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

We say goodbye to our third season with three reflections on loss. Issue 27 moves from grief, to regret, and then into a kind of rebirth. The body in Kelly Vance’s “Open Casket, 2020” is “a coded message too long to decipher in a single lifetime.” There is nothing to decode in the examined betrayal and remorse in “Mostly Sorry,” a eulogy of lost love by Susan Wadds. “But there is light, muted yet glistening” shining through Laurie Easter’s “Transmute,” where in water “floating sand is the mirror of stardust.” The light is all. It shines here, in these pieces.

—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!

Support WWR

By

From the Editors | Issue #26

April 2023

From the Editors

Editors Cheryl Wilder, Suzanne Farrell Smith, and Claire Guyton

Spring has arrived with all its blush and promise. By happy accident, we three women of Waterwheel Review get to spend our renewed energy on female vision, power, and connection in Issue #26. Donna Obeid’s “Omnia Vanitas,” one woman’s map to rapture, begins with the eternally good counsel, “Don’t be tricked by the knights. Don’t follow them into the forest.” Anna Citrino’s “Remembering Adella” honors a mother’s legacy of dedication and back-breaking labor, “Every action a prayer of submission to necessary work.” The woman in Elizabeth Bedell’s “The Shawl” mourns her mother, too, as she lives “in the key of grief.” Like a small, spring garden, these pieces. Planted here in celebration of our mothers and sisters.

—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!

Support WWR

By

From the Editors | Issue #25

March 2023

From the Editors

Time is how you spend your love. —Nick Laird

Often we move too fast to think about how we’re spending our time. So we make ourselves slow down. And we discover how much time we spend in love. With family, friends, the call to write. In love with this, our magazine. Issue #25 puts us into the home stretch of our third year, here at Waterwheel Review. We slow down to savor Caroline Simpson’s ode to aging male mentors, teachers, and fathers, “Old Men Love Me.” Then we sink into Sara Ries Dziekonski’s homage to grandmothers, diners, and good waitressing, “How Simple Steps Become a Dance.” And finally we allow ourselves to be led by Marie Antoinette, in Elizabeth Sylvia’s “Ars Antoinettica,” into a meditation on lucky accidents of birth—another reminder that we are three of the most fortunate women alive, every day doing work we love.

—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!

Support WWR