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

By

Who made it? Issue #36

Who made it?

June 2024 | Issue #36

With “Fractions Are Numbers that Are Not Whole” by Nancy Huggett

“Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton.
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930, oil on canvas, 46 x 46 cm, by Piet Mondrian.
“Untitled” by Pexels.

With “Inbetween” by Annaliese Jakimides

“Kintsugi” by Lana Del Rey.
“Hands Clasped” by Gavin Worth.
“Untitled” by Denny Müller.

With “In Its Otherness” by Richard Jackson

“Blue in Green” by Miles Davis.
“Flammarion” by unknown.
“Untitled” from A Pilgrim in Narnia.

By

Who made it? Issue #35

Who made it?

April 2024

With “The Crayfish Ferris Wheel” by Brian C. Billings

Gold pendant of a crayfish made between the 11th-16th centuries
“Crayfish Pendant,” 11th-16th century, gold, 5.4 x 3.8 x 1.3 cm, by the Chiriqui culture in Costa Rica. (Color edited.)
How to peel crawfish: 1. squeeze tail and head lightly, twist and pull apart, 2. suck the head (optional, but recommended), 3. peel off the first few rings of the tail shell, 4. press base of tail, pull meat out with fingers or teeth. An essential New Orleans skill.
“How to Peel Crawfish,” infopraphic via r/coolguides.
empty red and white gondola cabins on a white Ferris wheel against a grainy blue-grey sky
Empty Cabins of a Ferris Wheel, by Elina Volkova. (Color edited.)

With “Xeroseres: A Lesson” by Faith Allington

“I Follow Rivers” by Marika Hackman.
Puccinia's microscopic characteristics: rust, brown teardrop shaped heads with a tail of light green in clusters
“Diversity of rust fungus Puccinia on Justicia,” uploaded by Shambhu Kumar via Scientific Figure on ResearchGate.
Slose up of rust particles on the stem of green wheat shoots in a field.
“Close-up of stem rust (”Puccinia graminis”) on wheat,” by Yue Jin.

With “The Mood Begins to Shift” by Gerald Yelle

“Fate of the Fallen,” by Eternal Eclipse.
Painting of Polyphemus, the Homeric cyclops, taking very literal inspiration from elephant face anatomy in reference to the well-known idea that fossil elephant skulls inspired the cyclops myth.
“Untitled,” by Mark Witton.
dark grey clouds moving from the left into the bright sunny blue sky
“Monster in the Clouds,” by Micheal and Diane Weidner.

By

Who made it? Issue #34

Who made it?

March 2024 | Issue #34

With “How to Embellish an Upper Case V and Not Ruin It” by Victoria Melekian

“Perfect Day” by Lou Reed.
brass-colored fountain pen tip with script engraving
“Untitled” by The Different Perspective.
white pelican landing on still water at sunrise
“Pelican Ballet” by Birger Strahl.

With “Beginning with a Line from Roethke” by Kathleen McGookey

“Tower of Song” by Leonard Cohen.
high angle view of a stack of brown clay pots weathered with white minerals
“Untitled” by Marina Leonova.
reel to reel tape recorder, blue and grey
“Untitled” by David James.

With “And the Point Is to Live Everything” by Claire Scott

“I Lived” by One Republic.
close up of grey and white bird feathers
“Untitled” by Karolina Grabowska.
neutral-colored orb weaver spider sitting on an intricately woven web over a rock
“Untitled” by Muhammad Mahdi Karim.

By

Who made it? Issue #33

Who made it?

February 2024 | Issue #33

With “Songs” by Malcolm Glass

“Serenade” by Schubert.
19th century ceiling painting of Gaia, mother nature, depicted as a naked woman sleeping in the clouds with a red sash around her and a baby with angel wings looking up and reaching for her
Gaea, 1875, Ceiling painting, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, by Anselm Feuerbach.

With “[As part of the latest interdisciplinary proposal]” by Brendan Todt

“Blackbird” by The Beatles.
tesxtured deep blue sky and plains with a copper foreground with black trees and safari animals
Twilight Landscape, 2021, X ray films and colored LED lights, by Federico Ribe.

With “Sometimes I Do Not Know If I Should Tell My Children What I Have Seen” by Caroline Canter Triscik

“Latter Days” by Over the Rhine.
round nest on frozen willow branch in winter
“Frozen Empty Nest” by Shannon Deans.

Acknowledgments

Image of Spanish moss at Savannah for 91 Days.

Image of prairie grass at Small Farmers Journal.