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.

Liam Strong

oil spill

by Liam Strong

December 2020

my father held my grandfather over a river slick with careful fire.
from the banks, Cuyahoga spurt orange peel & sweetcorn.
when he found a town with my name in Ohio he took the turnpike through

to Virginia & the Gulf. eagles lingered above like their country did not matter.
an armadillo in Appalachia scared him half to death. my grandfather
dies the same way every time. i imagine it in the backyard, top of the hill,

where he bent bicycles back to bone. Petoskey stones lined the garden, loomed
like will o’ wisps over the river of the driveway. when i want someone around,
i want the worms beneath us to scatter. you shouldn’t have to ask. his head leaned

on the weight of his chin, & oil wends its way into his hair. he is young again.
you don’t have to be quiet on rivers. something carries on, something bloats wide
then thinned into particle. i trip against any tide, river, ocean.

in his waiters, he was iron ballast. my father watched as every river Kalamazoo
& south became a nettle of sliced peppers. when i want him around, he doesn’t
let the car hum. during winter, ice clings to my steps, & you fall. it’s only natural.

when the water doesn’t want us around, it consumes what it is given. it is always
given. a river that chokes knows something is wrong. once, i spat my throat out when
the Boardman River shoved its tongue into mine. when i reached for water,

all i found was my grandfather, pulling me toward where the fire could hold me.

Liam Strong is a Pushcart Prize nominated queer writer and studies English at University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the former editor of NMC Magazine. You can find their works in Impossible Archetype, Dunes Review, Monday Night, Lunch Ticket, Chiron Review, The Maynard, Panoply, Prairie Margins, and The 3288 Review.