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: January 2022

Editor’s Notebook

January 2022

Our final issue of Waterwheel Review’s second year will be May 2022, so we’re still well into our editing season. But here I am, at the end of 2021, and I’m enjoying all the “Best of” articles and lists. I have to jump in! And so… rather than sharing here my usual “Writer’s Notebook”—a spotlight on a publication from our first season—the very occasional “Editor’s Notebook” is born.

See below a year-end spotlight on Waterwheel Review in 2021, plus a few photos just for fun. Future Editor’s Notebook posts will provide a peek behind the editorial curtain.

— Claire Guyton

white woman in red dress with blue flowers in the kitchen chopping mushrooms with black and white cat on her shoulders staring out the window

Best Editor Moment of 2021

Claire: I read Ron Riekki’s revealed cover letter after accepting “idiopathic” (appearing in this issue), and discovered that he had written this piece specifically with Waterwheel Review in mind. That, alone, makes every instant (and cent) devoted to this magazine more than worth it.

Suzanne: While hunting for companion pieces to complement Kate Senecal’s “Nina Simone” (Issue #12, November 2021), I landed on a site devoted to vintage photos of pitbulls and their children. Some 60+ images of kids and dogs, all steeped in loyalty and love.

Cheryl: The version of “Mad World” we’re using as a companion to “Greenwich Origin Story” in this issue is (sorry, Tears for Fears) the only version for me. It’s so beautifully sad. Choosing this song and then Pharrell’s “Happy,” and then experiencing both on the homepage, in all their glorious contrast, was deeply satisfying.

Best Online Piece 2021

Claire: I almost can’t believe how carefully and beautifully Alice Gribbin has articulated this argument about our current, impoverished cultural narrative on art.

fake decorated Christmas tree with angel on top halfway covered by a tree bag

Suzanne: A Covid snapshot that inspires, by Sabrina Hicks.

Cheryl: I found a piece (published in 2020)—poetry as dictionary definition—by Danielle Cadena Deulen and immediately bought one of her books. To me, that warrants making our 2021 list.

Favorite Candid Christmas Pic

Claire: Behold my solution to the problem of owning two cats that see a Christmas tree as a personal mission of destruction. Seven tree-less years preceded the Googling brainstorm that led to this life-transforming purchase. A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.

Suzanne: My family’s annual search for the “perfect” tree (read, to my husband, right height / right width / right shape / right fullness) was helped this year by three sons (one 9-year-old and twin 7s) who are big enough to help carry the beauty over the river and through the woods.

Cheryl: In March 2021, my family lost both of our elder pets. We adopted “Christmas kittens” the week before Thanksgiving, hoping they would settle in by Christmastime. A successful decision.

white man and son in a cut your own Christmas tree farm on a foggy day