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

Complete Fiction Bruno Schulz

Ten Favorite Books List Contributed by Little

Top Ten List Contributor

Questioning Our Characters: Performative Identity in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, by Ben Berman Ghan

Ben Berman Ghan

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

Berthusen -- D. Enck

Three new poems by Mark Young

Mark Young

Farmers, Queens, Trains and Clowns

g emil reutter

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Ted Joans

I, Too, at the Beginning by Ted Joans

Ted Joans

OTR cover - https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindsaydeebunny/4502353209/

Jack Kerouac’s Books

Empty Mirror

Kerouac: Avatar for American Buddhism by Michael Amundsen

Jack Kerouac: Avatar of American Buddhism

Michael Amundsen

Jack Kerouac - The Sea is My Brother

Addendum to “Lost Letter Found”

Paul Maher Jr.

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Rock Art (detail) by Fabio Sassi

Rock Art – Photographs by Fabio Sassi

Fabio Sassi

Is Southern Art a Thing?: Thoughts from a Technically Southern Arts Writer

Sara Estes

More Art

Essays

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

Nanette Jordan

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

(Part VI) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

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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