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

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

Sara Estes

Courtney Zoffness interview - Brian DiNuzzo

Talking writing with award-winning author Courtney Zoffness

Courtney Zoffness and Brian DiNuzzo

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

gunter grass translated by allie marini

Günter Grass: three translations and response poems by Allie Marini

Allie Marini

Semiahmoo window (detail) / photo by Denise Enck

Six poems by Zheng Xiaoqiong/郑小琼, translated from Chinese by Zhou Xiaojing

Zhou Xiaojing and Zheng Xiaoqiong

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Old Angel Midnight

Earwitness Testimony: Sound and Sense, Word and Void in Jack Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight

Gregory Stephenson

City Lights Bookstore window

A. D. Winans Looks Back at the Beat Generation

A.D. Winans

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at Seattle's Hotel Stevens

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at the Hotel Stevens

Gregory Stephenson

The Creative Birth of Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s Creative Birth

Paul Maher Jr.

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Natalie Bradford - xerox transfer

Ten Xerox transfers by Natalie Bradford

Natalie Bradford

donkeys find an opening (detail) - Jill Emery

Workings: Paintings by Jill Emery

Jill Emery

More Art

Essays

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

Nanette Jordan

The Baby in the Air

Max King Cap

More Essays

The EM newsletter

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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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