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An excerpt from Rachmil Bryks’ memoir, The Fugitives, translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Rachmil Bryks and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

An excerpt from Rachmil Bryks' memoir, The Fugitives translated from Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub. Published with the permission of the author’s daughter, Bella Bryks-Klein Translator’s Note: “This is How It All Began” and “Fugitives” are the … [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...]

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...]

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...]

Sleevelessness: Growing Up in Midcentury San Francisco by Nanette Jordan

Nanette Jordan

Joseph Magnin dress salon

My mom’s job is to sit on a stool in our basement. Thatʼs where her art studio is. She has a drawing table there that has a square leaned-up top and ink stains all around the edges. When she’s not … [Read more...]

On Painting On

Nanette Jordan

on painting on

“Why are the paintings going away?” Mommy explains: ”Your dad is having a very important one-man show at a big fancy gallery across from The San Francisco Opera House. We're going to get all … [Read more...]

Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski by Linda King (2nd Edition)

Empty Mirror News

Linda King’s Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski

Wild Ocean Press, in collaboration with KissKill Press, is pleased to publish a second edition of Loving & Hating Charles Bukowski, completely edited and revised from an earlier version published in … [Read more...]

London 1966: I.T., the Camel, and a Song Named Me

Gloria Avner

International Times launch party flyer and debut issue / image credit: http://www.international-times.org.uk/ITarchive.htm

The camel’s unexpected appearance saved me. The raggedy texture of his fur, his massiveness, and his breath were all undeniably real, no matter how bizarre the setting and cast of characters. Snaking … [Read more...]

Hammond Guthrie’s AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor

Denise Enck

AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor by Hammond Guthrie / 2nd edition / Jorvik Press / 978-0988412231 / paperback, 296 pages The publisher provided Empty Mirror with a review copy. When the … [Read more...]

Book Review – What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life by Gary Soto

Denise Enck

What Poets Are Like -- Gary Soto

What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life / Gary Soto / Sasquatch Books / 978-1570618741 / 208 pages What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life collects sixty short essays … [Read more...]

Book Review – Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston

Denise Enck

Review: Love Him Madly by Judy Huddleston

Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston / Chicago Review Press / June 1, 2013 / 978-1613747506 / 240 pages The story begins just like many young girls' rock star … [Read more...]

Book Review – Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson

Denise Enck

Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson

Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson / Sorika / 978-0957557307 / 92 pages Horse Latitudes is a small gem of a book, bound in white covers illustrated with a painting. It is strikingly beautiful, with a … [Read more...]

Book Review – Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God: A Memoir by James Crockett

Denise Enck

Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God

Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God / James Crockett / 978-148125581 / 261 pages Empty Mirror received a review copy of this book. As a young man about to embark upon a summer-long hitchhiking … [Read more...]

Jenny Lynn

Lloyd Bond

Jenny Lynn

Cold wind is building and ready. It is not understood the pent feelings that have suddenly surfaced after long and even further back and then along the slow moving world and probably before the long … [Read more...]

Hear That Lonesome Whistle

Jason Hardung

Union Pacific / copyright http://foter.com/portfolio/slambo-4/

I started drinking while the Wyoming sky was pink and you could still see forever. Earlier that day I found just enough smack to keep me from being sick. It got me moving. It got me out in the sun. … [Read more...]

Review – Free Beer: Kicks and Truth with Jack Kerouac by Cliff Anderson

Denise Enck

Free Beer: Kicks & Truth with Jack Kerouac by Cliff Anderson

Free Beer: Kicks & Truth with Jack Kerouac, and other strong drinks is a collection of twelve stories by Cliff Anderson. Also included is Kerouac scholar Rod Anstee's 1990 interview with Anderson, … [Read more...]

Heeding the Call of the Open Road

Kyrsten Bean

photo credit: adjac

Beat culture and hippie culture were both long gone as a central movement by the time I was growing up, but hop on the bandwagon I did. As a teenager, there was nothing I wanted more than to get 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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