Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

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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 

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Who made it? Issue #26

Who made it?

April 2023 | Issue #26

With “Omnia Vanitas” by Donna Obeid

“Dance on The Moon” by Aurora.
1800s oil painting of fair-skinned woman with long straight brown hair leaning on her elbow, her other hand resting on a human skull, looking dreamy and contemplative into the distance
Omnia Vanitas, 1848, by William Dyce.
Untitled by MariaD.

With “Remembering Adella” by Anna Citrino

abstract field with rough brush strokes for grass, valleys and hillsides in white, gray, and blue
Embracing the Silence by Wanda Loomis.
early version of Picasso's Woman Ironing; woman with dark brown hair, olive skin, bent over using a flat iron; colors are all tinted with hues of blue
La Repasseuse, 1901, by Pablo Picasso.

With “The Shawl” by Elizabeth Bedell

Chopin Etude in E major Op. 10 no. 3 “Tristesse” by Henrik Kilhamn.
curly blond-headed child in red coat and hat bending over a wall covered in vines with a key to unlock a secret door; book cover of The Secret Garden
Cover: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Illustrated by Maria Louise Kirk.
painting of women wearing Kashmiri shawls; colors of the background are earth tones and abstract; women are wearing cream-colored shawls with the same earth tones as the background
Cashmere, 1908, by John Singer Sargent.

Acknowledgments

Field background by BETRuleR via Alpha Coders.

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Editor’s Notebook: Mad and getting madder.  On writing Wrath.

Editor’s Notebook: Mad and getting madder. On writing Wrath.

April 2023

digital art of a stream of fire spitting out from the left toward a cloud of smoke

I’m very sorry to say that I can’t remember the last time I lived three days in a row without being angry. And usually not just angry. Furious. I bring it on myself, and I’m going to have to keep it up because my work depends on it.

The book I’m writing was birthed in righteous anger. Writing the rage allows me to make meaning from it, maybe even art. But to tell the truth about all that anger, I’ve had to study it. Even wallow in it. And I wonder, as I push on, how much Wrath can writing—good writing—contain? Given all this focus on my own fury, I knew I’d read my co-editor Suzanne’s meditation on Wrath, the penultimate essay in our reprised series, 7 Sins of the Writing Life, in a wholly new way.

When my fiction is inspired by anger, as soon as the story takes hold of me and demands to be written, I rise up and away. The fire can no longer hurt because I experience it as empathy for the character I’ve created. When I worked with Suzanne on this essay ten years ago, that’s how I understood and experienced Wrath in relation to my writing and writing life. But my current work; this outrageous business of writing about my own life… well.

I do not rise. The fire hurts.

“[A]s I think about how Wrath acts—a blind, chaotic, and unstoppable force—it alarms me,” says Suzanne, “that should it go unchecked in our writing lives, it could destroy much more than just our writing.” That alarms me, too. “If we let it, Wrath can steal energy from writing, break professional connections, and destroy nurturing personal relationships in the writing community.” Yes, it can! Shall I tell you how I know that? Another time, perhaps.

But: “Productively using Wrath is like burning the underbrush to prevent a forest fire.”

While my work turns me into a rage-archaeologist, digging around in the dirt of my childhood for the evidence that my Wrath started there (it did, yes), I ask myself how to tame the energy of all that anger, how to avoid stoking it for the sake of the page, how to ensure I keep telling the truth even as I burn. So far, the best answer? Learn from the writers willing to show the way.

Are you writing Wrath? Do you avoid writing Wrath? Take a look at what Suzanne and the writers she consulted have to say about this all-consuming writing-life Sin.

And just for fun, here are my two favorite songs about anger. I took breaks to listen to both as I wrote this post:

Next month, when we publish our final issue of the season, we will complete our essay series with Pride.

May you indulge and enjoy all writing sins forevermore. And may you write well today.

—Claire Guyton

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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