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

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

Original image: Olivetti Lettera 32, c. 1975 by mpclemens / Foter.com / CC BY. Photoshopped greatly by Empty Mirror.

Typewriter Experiment #1: Getting to Know You

James Patrick

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

by the river / credit: de

Four cow poems by Orchid Tierney

Orchid Tierney

Sylvia A. Perkins, Hoquiam

The 1899 Commissioner of the General Land Office meets Sylvia A. Perkins, lover of Floral Poetry

Denise Enck

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Jack Kerouac - The Sea is My Brother

A “lost” Jack Kerouac letter found . . . and “lost” again.

Paul Maher Jr.

ruth and Hal Davis on their porch. Photo by Horst Spandler, 2013.

Celebrating ruth weiss on her 90th birthday

Horst Spandler

Railroad Earth - Photo is Road to Nowhere by Blue Betty via http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bluebetty, photoshopped by Empty Mirror

October in the Railroad Earth – Jack Kerouac

Empty Mirror

William S. Burroughs and Cats

The Guardian and the Familiar: William S. Burroughs and Cats

Lee Watkins

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Fighting Chance (detail) - LIta Kenyon

All These Sensations: 11 artworks by Lita Kenyon

Lita Kenyon

Folly and Fortune (detail) - Nathan Pietrykowski

Too Dee: Drawings by Nathan Pietrykowski

Nathan Pietrykowski

More Art

Essays

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Brooke Knisley

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

(Part V) 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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