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

Editor’s Notebook: Cover Letters & The Art of Persistence

Editor’s Notebook: Cover Letters & The Art of Persistence

February 2022

We’ve been thinking a lot about cover letters lately, both because our submissions are growing, so we’re seeing so many more than we were, and because recent submitters are commenting favorably on our issue composition and design. We always share these letters with each other, because little is more thrilling than knowing writers are appreciating and connecting with our vision.

We know many submitters worry about what to put in a cover letter—we’re writers, we’ve been there—but I can’t help with “This letter worked!” advice, because at Waterwheel Review, we don’t see cover letters until after we’ve made a decision on the submission. We have to hit “accept” or “decline” in Submittable before the letter becomes visible. Still, we can promise you there’s one thing that will always go over very well, regardless of when the letter gets read:

Good humor will always make a harried editor happy. Behold below our all-time favorite lines in a cover letter, from Rex Wilder, a poet who just happens to share a last name with one of us, Cheryl Wilder (no relation). Our guidelines ask that submitters offer only one piece at a time (poets are used to sending multiple poems at once) and that they do NOT label the submitted piece in any way, given that our magazine is genre-label-free. Rex:

“I hope I observed the directions correctly, as in only sending one and NOT telling you whether it’s a poem, a photograph, or a hamburger. Genre-neutral you are!”

He then signed his letter with, “All my best, Rex (maybe Wilder than Cheryl; maybe not).”

Rex and Cheryl were acquainted, because he had contacted her before submitting to ask about whether they might be related, and that resulted in a friendly exchange. Because we try to reach out when a revealed cover letter tells us we have just rejected a person we know, just to pass along a personal note of appreciation for the submission and encouragement to submit again, Cheryl told Rex that we loved the tone of his cover letter, and asked if we could use lines from it sometime as an example (predicting this post). Which in turn prompted this cover letter with a subsequent submission:

“I am sorry, but I no longer write cover letters pro bono.” That was the entire letter.

Most authors, even if they happen to know us, aren’t going to feel comfortable being chatty or goofy in a cover letter. We can’t all be Rex! Stick to your own voice. But DO use that voice again.

Thinking about Rex’s cover letters reminded me that we accepted his “canyon market,” which appeared in Issue #10, on his third try. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other authors we accepted on a second or third submission. In this way, please do be like Rex. If we’ve encouraged you to submit again, take that encouragement seriously.

And if you haven’t submitted to Waterwheel Review at all… what are you waiting for?

—Claire Guyton