Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine publishing nonfiction, poetry, and art. We publish new work every Friday and accept submissions year-round.
Empty Mirror is committed to diversity and inclusiveness.
Submission form
Submit your work via Submittable
Submissions guidelines
For all categories:
- It’s always free to submit. There are no fees.
- For your best chances of acceptance, please browse Empty Mirror to get a feel for what we’re about.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine. Please notify us immediately if work submitted is accepted by another publication.
- Most work is published within two to twelve weeks of acceptance.
Poetry
- Each week, Empty Mirror publishes two or more previously unpublished poems by a single poet.
- Please submit three to six poems together in one document.
- Please don’t double-space your poems unless they must be presented that way when published.
- In most cases, you can expect to have a decision within one to twelve weeks. Depending on the volume of poetry submissions received and my workload, it may be longer — or as fast as one day. (I’m the only one here and am working hard to reduce response times.)
Nonfiction: essays, reviews, articles, features, interviews, personal essays
- Length is very open and long pieces are welcome. Here are some general guidelines:
–essays, articles, and features, 1,000-20,000 words
–interviews up to 10,000 words
–book reviews from about 600 words - Please send previously unpublished work. (Occasional exceptions may be made for work which has not previously appeared online. If submitting work which has been published in print only, please specify when and where.)
- In most cases, you can expect to have a decision within one to four weeks.
- Please attribute your sources when appropriate.
- You’ll make my life so much easier if you use endnotes rather than footnotes.
- Work may be copy edited.
Book reviews
- If you’d like EM to publish a book review that you’ve written, please see the non-fiction guidelines above.
- If you’d like me to consider reviewing your book, please read EM’s book review policy and guidelines, then send me an email if your book meets the criteria.
Visual art
- Please submit three to twelve images united by a common theme or style.
- Your artist’s statement or introductory note is optional but very welcome.
- Images should be submitted as individual files rather than embedded in a document.
- Images should be at least 750 pixels wide.
- Please name each image with its title or include a caption. Untitled work is fine, too.
- In most cases, you can expect to have a decision within one to four weeks.
Fiction
- EM is not currently accepting fiction submissions.
Questions?
Please contact the editor, Denise Enck.
For our contributors
EM can’t currently offer payment. (We receive no funding, and the amount generated by ads and tip jar submissions each month doesn’t cover costs.) We hope to be able to pay contributors in the future.
Here’s what we can do, though!
- Newly published work is usually featured on the Empty Mirror homepage for a week or more.
- Your work will be featured in EM’s weekly newsletter.
- Your bio will be included on every piece you contribute to Empty Mirror as well as on your author page. (We’re happy to include links to your websites, social media, and sales pages in order to encourage readers to learn more about your work.)
- Your work will be shared on Twitter (where we have over 24,000 followers) and Empty Mirror’s Facebook page.
- If you’re on Twitter, please let me know so EM can follow you and add you to the EM contributor list there.
- New pages on Empty Mirror are quickly indexed by Google and other search engines.
Terms
Empty Mirror requests First World Rights, and the right to include the work on the Empty Mirror website indefinitely.
After publication, all rights revert to the author. Copyright always remains with the author.
We ask that you wait at least one month after publication at EM before republishing the work. Should it be published elsewhere (whether in another publication or on your own website), please credit Empty Mirror with its first publication.
EM’s editorial process
Wondering what the process is from submission to publication? Read a description of EM’s editorial workflow.
