Waterwheel Review

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Writer’s Notebook: “Release and Hold Harmless”

Writer’s Notebook: “Release and Hold Harmless”

Published February 2022, Issue #15

Once I began to sink into this issue and think deeply about how written art can make beauty of loss, I was inevitably led to Lucy Wilde’s “Release and Hold Harmless.”

Written within the framing of a contract, Lucy’s piece is a powerful meditation on the loss of her husband. I remembered from our editorial exchange that this was her first attempt at using another narrative form for her creative work, something that surprised me because the piece is so well crafted. I’ve written a few short stories using other narrative shapes, and have a fondness for this approach, so I’ve thought a lot about what we can accomplish when subverting a narrative form. I reached out to Lucy to ask her to share her thoughts on why she was drawn to use the framing of a contract to tell her story:

After my husband passed away, I thought a lot about guilt and blame. About how hard it is in intimate relationships for people to move from these feelings to a place of forgiveness, both of self and of the other. I tried many times to write about how this played out over the course of our relationship, but I just couldn’t find a way to tell the story that captured the truth of it. I couldn’t find the right container to hold this complex and painful story.

About a year ago, I was introduced to the hermit crab essay form and was intrigued by the idea of using an already existing form (or shell) as a container for writing difficult material. I had recently been in a situation where I had to sign a “Release and Hold Harmless” waiver and realized that a contract like this would be a good container for telling our story, particularly because we were not committed to each other under the “’til death do us part” contract of marriage.

This “Release and Hold Harmless” form is usually one-sided—one party being released by another—but I found a rare one that was a “mutual” release. I didn’t want the story to appear one-sided, and this was perfect. The legal nature of the form, which might seem restrictive, actually allowed me to tell the story in a matter-of-fact and balanced way, which I think added to the emotional depth. I was able to tell “his” and “her” story separately, which allowed me to show that both parties are culpable, and both suffer. The form helped me to tell the real story without judgement. It was inherent in the form itself, and in the action of the two parties agreeing to sign it. And after writing the first draft, I found that I didn’t have to find a way to show the desire for forgiveness.

In all my thinking about subverted forms—I wrote my MFA critical thesis on this topic—I focused on the tools of craft, asking how to capitalize on the form without taking away from the needs of the story framed by it. I love Lucy’s attention to the bigger picture, here. How do I balance the story of both characters equally, showing that both are responsible and both suffered? By using a contract that requires me to do so.

Many thanks to Lucy for sharing her thoughts, and, of course, for letting us showcase her work.

—Claire Guyton

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Who made it? | Issue #19

Who made it?

September 2022 | Issue #19

With “A Small Death” by Heidi Kasa

abstract painting of woman listening to music served on a tray, while blood drips from her heart into a wine glass and her ear is a mouth devouring the music
Hearlip, oil and acrylic on wood, by Ryan Lane.

With “The Cat in the Window” by Rosemary Jones

“Ancient Egyptian Flute Ney Music” by Turrim Aurea.
graphic design of the Egyptian Goddess Bastet, a black cat silhouette with gold background
The Goddess Bastet, graphic design, by Ossama Boshra via Wikicommons.

With “Solder” by Ted Mc Carthy

“Song for Hope” by Peter Meechan, performed by Ryan Anthony and friends.

Acknowledgments

Photo of rambutan fruit by GoPlaces via Pixabay.

Illustration of butterfly effect by geralt via Pixabay.

Photo of full moon by Alexis Antonio via unsplash.

Photo of euphonium by Richie74 via catawiki.

Photo of Kintsugi pottery by Riho Kitagawa via unsplash.

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Editor’s Notebook: The Power of “I”

Editor’s Notebook: The Power of “I”

September 2022

Rakotz bridge (Rakotzbrucke, Devil's Bridge) in Kromlau, Saxony, Germany. Colorful autumn, reflection of the bridge in the water create a full circle

I like to use this feature either to peek behind the editorial curtain, as when I put together a piece on our favorite issue quotes last May; or to revisit and celebrate a previously published piece (as I did here). I look forward to doing both of these things in the coming months, but as September 2022 arrives, opening the door to the glory of our third season of Waterwheel Review—I almost can’t believe I just wrote “third” but here we are, our baby is still bouncing and beautiful, and I’m more in love with her than ever—I want to step more deeply into our process. I want to offer a peek behind the authorial curtain.

We three editors are writers, first. Our friendship community was forged by and for writing, and that’s still our primary focus. Through our decade together, we’ve used many tools to keep each other in tune with our writing lives. In the last year or so we settled on a very simple one to focus our writing energy: I-words.

We each chose an I-word to meditate on, hold in our mind’s eye, float before us every time we sat down to write. The word served as a reminder of what we wanted to accomplish with our writing and in our writing lives. Why an I-word rather than some other letter? I can’t remember but as I write this post, I’m thinking Suzanne, who I’m sure suggested this exercise, was clever to choose the one letter that also happens, in English, to constitute a word that stands for personhood. No surprise she’s the nonfiction writer among us. She thinks deeply about the “I” every time she writes.

We chose Ignite, Integrate, Intend.

Did it work? Like any tool, yes and no. I’ll just speak for myself and admit that I have until recently done very little writing throughout the pandemic, and the smallness of my efforts was beginning to take a very serious toll. More and more this year I was feeling the way I always feel when I go too long without writing anything of substance—fractured, unfocused, uninterested. But I pulled out my I-word here and there, opened a Word file … and, eventually, what do you know. Ignition. I am now fully immersed in a writing project conceived while meditating on my I-word, and, as always before, my almost daily writing practice is my salvation.

And now here we are; the Maine sky has begun to take on that saturated blue of September, and there’s a hint of chill in the morning air. I do relish opening the door to this third season. We’re back! And we need new words.

We are writers, first, and by necessity. Our drive to discover and spotlight fine, moving, unique work is born entirely of our reverence for every aspect of writing as makers. This project of crafting art with words … we just can’t get enough of it. But it’s clear to all of us that the wheel has to keep turning. If all the water flows in one direction only, under and through the wheel, from us and into the magazine—none lifted by the turning blades, none coming back to us—then there is no replenishing and the source runs dry.

In renewed understanding of how important it is that we nourish ourselves and each other as writers so that we can step up with enthusiasm and energy as editors, I suggested we select new I-words for our new season: Our 20th or so season as writers, our 10th or so season in writing community, and our 3rd season as co-editors. All—writing, community, editing—linked and replenished by the waterwheel.

Our new words: Invent. Invest. Intensify.

Welcome to Season Three.

—Claire Guyton

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From the Editors | Issue #19

September 2022

From the Editors

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. —Stephen King

three middlge-aged women taking a selfie

In Issue 19 a song goes to the moon, the night becomes the jealous watcher of a cat—“black skim of spine and sleek head”—and the phrase “scarred bell and brain” captures a lifetime of fractured relationship. Heidi Kasa, Rosemary Jones, and Ted Mc Carthy usher in this third season of Waterwheel Review with textured, lyric work that speaks to what time eventually takes—our ambition, our health; but reminds us, too, of what remains from one generation to the next, from one civilization to the next, to give us meaning and purpose. Reminds us? No. Celebrates. This issue’s guiding quotation—“Time takes it all,” says Stephen King—works like a sad song that lifts us from grief because it makes us sing. King’s words tell us to stay in this moment, this art. Be present. While you sink into that sentence and the next and the next … there is no time.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

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