Rebecca Wenrich Wheeler's Blog: The Between

Despite that I’ve lost count how many drafts of Whispering Through Water exist, one thing has remained throughout every revision: the title. I grew up in a small town on a coastal peninsula, and practically every house was within three blocks of a river. Water imagery creeps into my writing, whether intended or not. Water has the power to both heal and destroy. I’ve experienced the beauty of the water on a spring day, and then the menacing beast during a hurricane. Water is the ultimate paradox.

I discovered the poet, Denise Levertov, when I took Feminist Poetry in graduate school. I often return to my well-worn copy Levertov's poetry collection Breathing the Water (1984). The title highlights the water paradox. The image of breathing water brings to mind either images of healing and cleansing or suffocating and drowning. (Personally, I lean toward healing imagery).

When my sister and I were kids, we would sink underwater in the pool and try to mouth words as the other would try to guess what we said. Of course, we rarely guessed correctly and just ended up spraying water at each other. Although in real life, sometimes our voice feels as if we are screaming through a filter of water. Our mouths go through the motions of movement but without sound. Despite her longingness, the protagonist in Whispering Through Water often feels stifled by her own reluctance to speak her truth, particularly to the family’s matriarch, her Aunt Delia.

“It’s like in my mind I feel as if I’m screaming for her to understand what I want, what I need, but then when the words leave my mouth I feel as if,” I paused to gather my thoughts, “as if I’m just whispering through water.” . . . My aunt was the one person who I was terrified to confront, and the one person I most wanted to hear me."

-excerpt from Whispering Through Water

One of my favorite poems in Breathing the Water is “I learned that her name was Proverb.” The poem explores the power of human relationships, no matter how brief, people we may only know for a moment, but that play a pivotal role in our lives. A person we may only have spoken to once, but years later would recognize without question. Or maybe it’s a person we have known for years, who has now grown and changed with time, but one word can take us back years to when we met them.

“one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years know and don’t recognize
But of whom later a word
sings back to us”

-excerpt from “I learned that her name was Proverb” by Denise Levertov

My novel Whispering Through Water explores both types of relationships. The brief relationship that shapes a lifetime, and the lifelong relationship that must change to survive. I’m excited to count down the days until I can share Whispering Through Water with you.

Keep looking up.

​Becca

I’m excited to announce my first YA novel Whispering Through Water will be released January 4, 2023 from Monarch Press. Set in 1998, a time on the cusp of a technology explosion when youth, especially young women, were experiencing the benefits of the women’s movement fought for by their mothers and grandmothers.

The coming-of-age story follows our protagonist, Gwyn Madison, the summer after her high school graduation. While grappling with her fast-approaching future, Gwyn stumbles upon a long held family secret. She’ll have to face more than she bargained for with her Aunt Delia, the family matriarch, and in the meantime, she meets a young man that shows her that going after what she needs is worth everything. Whispering Through Water navigates family dynamics, young love, female empowerment, friendship, with a little 90s nostalgia.

I completed the initial “final” draft in 2013 (which had already seen three different versions), and in winter of 2021, circumstances prompted me to revisit this novel again, of which it went through another complete rewrite. There’s something to be said about letting work rest before approaching it again; albeit my book took an eight year nap! Now what actually inspired me to write the story would be a spoiler alert, so I’ll just say, my inspiration was prompted by an NPR interview I listened to in 2008.

I have always been interested in the concept of the “Generation Gap”. If you are a reader of history, historical fiction, or even just talked with your grandmother, there are qualities that transcend generational divide: the distinctly human drive for autonomy and agency to determine one’s own future. The lengths we will go to in order to maintain agency, and the despair we feel when we cannot. The ability to achieve autonomy is impacted by cultural norms and sometimes puts us at odds with those we love.

I am excited for you all to read this decade+ labor of love.

Keep looking up.
Becca