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.

September 1, 2023 By Suzanne Farrell Smith

Editor’s Notebook: We Are Who We Are

September 2023

close up: the edge of a small spillway with calm water on top dropping over in a curtain of water sparkling in the sun

Readers, we considered sharing our “What did you do over summer vacation?” tales as a means to peek behind the curtain: What do magazine editors do when they’re not magazine editing? How and when do they write? Importantly, do they write at all?

We came up with this: &$#! (one of us navigating a medical emergency); %*^@ (one of us taking care of kids who got sick their first week of school); and what-the-actual-f? (one of us unable to send her kids back to school because of mold. MOLD.).

We are three WWR editors excited by and honored to publish stunning writing. Somehow, we hear the writing and associate it with images and sounds. We read music, echo voices, and project ideas. Despite and within our own trials, we continue to celebrate what flows by, no matter its form. But, we’re human—vulnerable and fierce—and because life is life, we must pivot to keep moving forward, like water.

—Suzanne Farrell Smith