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Something About Rage and the Light Dying

Jason Hardung

lake padden

I hadn’t killed us yet. My dad fidgeted next to me, exhaling loudly every few moments. Always a sensitive kid, I guess I was something of a Doppler radar of other’s emotions and my father’s nerves … [Read more...]

Conversations at Thresholds: a Contemplative Offering

Tara K. Shepersky

Threshold_2 (detail) Tara K Shepersky

I went for a walk this morning, as I do most days, before the sky held enough light to see in color. Morning joy is one of the most reliable sorts for me. Part of the appeal is living the visible, … [Read more...]

Love Song for a River Bank

Tara K. Shepersky

Home (detail). Photo by Tara Shepersky.

The great wall of ancient growth slides its shadow across the river. Alder-cedar-redwood are the color of the afternoon water: serpentine. A breeze sweeps up from the sea. It picks out the leaves of … [Read more...]

The Mill Stones of History

Lazar Trubman

The Millstones of History

My wife always thought that someday I’d be a big success. She talked about it since we got married, enthusiastically in the beginning, particularly when she became pregnant with our first daughter, … [Read more...]

Richard’s Coat: Remembering Richard Irwin

Rebecca LaFontaine-Larivee

Rebecca LaFontaine-Larivee - Richard's Coat: Remembering Richard Irwin

Richard’s Coat… went into the cardboard box with all the other things for the thrift store: an orange radio with a broken antenna, a vintage purse that was only in fashion in San Francisco’s … [Read more...]

Aztec Summer

John Yohe

Aztek peak fire lookout - John Yohe / Edward Abbey

And after I got laid off from my teaching job in Michigan, I moved out to Portland and lived on unemployment and savings for almost two years, running my credit union accounts almost down to zero … [Read more...]

a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

Marlie Centawer

Marlie Centawer - a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

12 March 2018 It is said that a woman haunts, she sees everything. An observer, a writer, a siren of dreams. In my heart and mind, I am always searching for slivers of paradise while being silently … [Read more...]

The Muse Cuts: On Mental Health and Writing

Jennifer Marsh

cache / image credit: de

My university lies at the center of a small farming town. It is a splotch of academia in the midst of many hay fields, and this year it has eleven thousand students. I’m here to learn creative … [Read more...]

Notes on the Sacred Art of Dog Walking

Chris La Tray

Darla

I read and reviewed Jim Harrison’s final collection of poetry, Dead Man’s Float, for the Missoula Independent in January of 2016. One of the first poems to strike me deeply is called “Notes on the … [Read more...]

(Part VI) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

This is the final excerpt and contains chapters 11-Denouement. Here are all of the installments: Part I · Part II · Part III · Part IV · Part V · Part … [Read more...]

Faleeha Hassan: My Life as a Refugee

Faleeha Hassan

Faleeha Hassan - My Life as an Iraqi Refugee

Once my name appeared on a death list published in a number of newspapers and on some websites, I decided to flee Iraq and went first to the Turkish city of Eskişehir—on the advice of an Iraqi friend … [Read more...]

Eight Hours

Marina Petrova

six / image credit: em

A man, who was leaving, asked me to write a story. He said he was going on an errand – a meeting with his accountant, a lunch with his cable guy, a high tea with a small herd of white rhinos – I … [Read more...]

(Part V) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

This excerpt contains chapters 8-10. Here are all of the installments: Part I · Part II · Part III · Part IV · Part V · Part VI 8. Homeless … [Read more...]

How to Die Like You Meant It

Jeff Beddow

Great Northern Railway logo / Joe Mabel

“I don’t have long to live, and this is what heaven looks like,” I thought as I lay on my back, my breath freezing to my beard in the minus 3 temperature, the hard, dirty snow between the boxcars … [Read more...]

Animals, Seven Days Old

Lake Vargas

animals, seven days old

I.          I start at the cheek, the slope slowing into the area where eyes rest. The dip of the chin, gray’s muted hue, smog on jaw. The ear, hair … [Read more...]

(Part IV) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

This excerpt contains chapter 7, in which Alison spends time at the Kerouac School in Boulder, then continues her adventures in Rome. Here are all of the installments: Part I · Part II … [Read more...]

(Part III) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

This excerpt contains chapters 5 and 6, which detail Alison's experiences at the Kerouac School in the early 1980s and her later homelessness at Columbia University. Here are all of the … [Read more...]

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

Nanette Jordan

You can read Part I of Nanette's memoir of growing up in 1950s San Francisco here. I begin to make a habit of snuggling down behind the Shoji screen with a "Minka." I hold my breath … [Read more...]

White Jesus – A reflection on summer camp and Charlottesville

Todd Clouser

White Jesus -- Todd Clouser

Growing up in Kansas, from about 9 to 12 years old, I went to Christian summer camp down the highway in rural Missouri. I loved it there. We swam in creeks and caught crawfish. I played soccer and … [Read more...]

Panic Drapes the Look of the World: Literary Treatment for Anxiety in an Uncertain Age

Emily Sinclair

1. June, 2016: I was having a panic attack while I walked the dog after dinner. Children rode skateboards and scooters in that last yellowed hour before bedtime. I felt unreal to myself, and the … [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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