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

Jitterbug Pefume

Peter’s Top Ten Favorite Books

Top Ten List Contributor

Virginia Woolf & Edith Wharton -- Linda Chown Essay

Writers on Writers on Writers II: John Colopinto, “Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, and A Case of Anxiety of Influence”

Linda E. Chown

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

Country

Poems from COUNTRY by Shelby Stephenson

Shelby Stephenson

overlay / credit: de

Three poems by Denzel Scott

Denzel Scott

More Poetry

Beat Generation

The Rebirth of the Author in On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Rebirth of the Author in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Eric V. Patterson

La Picaudiere - and Hundertwasser's Honey

La Picaudiere — and Hundertwasser’s Honey

Kenneth Tindall

Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's On the Road

Excerpt from Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Paul Maher Jr.

boundary road, with blueberries

Juxtaposition of Wor[l]ds: The Cultural and Literary Legacy of the Beat Generation

Eric V. Patterson

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Yen Yen - Rainbow Stacks (detail) watercolor

Everything is Zero Calorie: Watercolors by Yen Yen

Yen Yen

Renunication, Mixed media on paper, 22x32, 2006

Meditations: Paintings by Kurt Rostek

Kurt Rostek

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

lake padden

Something About Rage and the Light Dying

Jason Hardung

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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