Waterwheel Review Is Live

We’ve launched a literary journal!

Why in the world—why in this world—launch a literary journal? 

Writes Stephanie Burt in the New Yorker: “A new journal needs a reason to exist: a gap that earlier journals failed to fill, a new form of pleasure, a new kind of writing, an alliance with a new or under-chronicled social movement, a constellation of authors for whom the future demand for work exceeds present supply, a program that will actually change some small part of some literary readers’ tastes.”

On February 29, Waterwheel Review, opened for submissions. We three editors—Claire Guyton, Cheryl Wilder, and I—are a short story writer, a poet, and a creative nonfiction writer. Our reason to exist is to answer the question, “What if a literary journal ignores genre? What if we publish what you write, and let you decide what to call it?” We did not anticipate what would happen to the U.S. a couple weeks later—what was already happening to the world. 

Now it is September 1, the long-hoped-for date to publish our first three authors: Christina Rauh Fishburne, Jefferson Navicky, and Sofia T. Romero. Given the state of the world, pomp doesn’t really fit the circumstance. So I’ll let Claire say it: “And here we are, reveling in all this art we get to showcase, celebrating this new small community of makers, and glorying in literature without labels.” (One of those makers in Issue #1 is my sister Deb Farrell, who contributed a painting!)

Here we are, wherever and whenever this is, a willing vessel to float three new pieces of good writing into the world.