Empty Mirror

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About Josh Medsker

Josh Medsker is a New Jersey writer, originally from Alaska. His debut collection, Cacophony, was published in 2019 by Alien Buddha Press. His fiction, poetry, journalism, memoir, and literary criticism has appeared in many publications, including Empty Mirror, Contemporary American Voices, Haiku Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Anchorage Press. His website is joshmedsker.com.

Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house at 29 Russell St., San Francisco

Josh Medsker

29 Russell St., 1999, by Joshua Medsker

It’s been about ten years now since I saw Beat legends Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house. It was such a thrill for me; I can remember it perfectly. My old friends Kirstin and Colin, from Alaska had … [Read more...]

Sinclair Beiles: A Man Apart

Josh Medsker

Sinclair Beiles - courtesy of GC - from the book Bone Hebrew

Sinclair Beiles was a South African writer associated with the Beat movement of the late 50s and early 60s. During the time of his earliest successes, he moved from South Africa to Paris, to live with … [Read more...]

Constrained Writing Techniques

Josh Medsker

black maze on yellow background

Constrained writing can produce some unexpected results. In my recent experimenting with language and poetry, I remembered some of the Surrealist/Dadaist techniques I’d learned in my youth and added a … [Read more...]

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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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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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