Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

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Empty Mirror 25th Anniversary

Empty Mirror celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 31, 2025! While we are currently on hiatus, we invite you to enjoy a quarter century of writing and art in our archives.

Click to read any of the pieces featured below, read more from the category, or refresh the page for a fresh selection!

On Literature

Jean Stafford’s Boston Adventure: Tradition and the Talented Individual by Linda Chown

Jean Stafford’s Boston Adventure: Tradition and the Talented Individual

Linda E. Chown

Stephanie Dickinson and Rosalind Palermo Stevenson conversation

Writing Through Icons: Rosalind Palermo Stevenson and Stephanie Dickinson on Franz Kafka and Jean Seberg

Rosalind Palermo Stevenson and Stephanie Dickinson

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

harbor / credit: d.enck

Two poems by Cynthia X. Hua

Cynthia X. Hua

jazz sax

Where The Hell is Shafi Hadi?*

Sean Murphy

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Tristessa by Jack Kerouac, book cover

Book Review — Tristessa by Jack Kerouac

Eric D. Lehman

The Haunted Life and Other Writings by Jack Kerouac

Kerouac Before the Jazz: a review of “The Haunted Life”

Jim Cherry

Ted Joans Lives! Tribute (12)

Empty Mirror

The Haunted Life and Other Writings by Jack Kerouac

Paul Maher Jr. considers Kerouac’s Haunted Life

Paul Maher Jr.

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Untitled for Awake - Doren Robbins

Artworks by Doren Robbins

Doren Robbins

Folly and Fortune (detail) - Nathan Pietrykowski

Too Dee: Drawings by Nathan Pietrykowski

Nathan Pietrykowski

More Art

Essays

Scylla - Buku Sarkar essay

Scylla

Buku Sarkar

Dearly Beloved, Part II: Growing up in Bohemian 1950s San Francisco

Nanette Jordan

More Essays

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!

Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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