We are the official annual publication of the LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop, an immersive, collaborative summer program designed for students and innovators interested in publishing.

Staircase

Countercultural Chronotopes of Thomas Pynchon

The 1950s in the United States, marked by the post-World War II economic boom, were characterized by pressures to conform, Cold War fears, and increasing government surveillance. By the 1960s, the United States was primed for a revolution in thought and expression. As...
Painting of a violin on a sheet of music, set on olive green background

The Ceaseless Song

I made music before I could speak. I drummed and hummed along with tunes it seemed only I could hear. When I could stand, I hauled myself to the piano and pressed the keys blindly above my head. I wrote my first song before I could reach the pedals. When I was strong...
Orange fungus growing on a fallen bark.

Decompose

"Witches' Butter" (2022), Yazlin Juarez. Courtesy of the author.Yazlin Juarez is a writer and artist from Pico Rivera with a bachelors in literature from UC Santa Cruz. She takes every opportunity to forge spoken word poetry, photography, and design into instruments...

Prelude to a Scripture

   Here is a list of things I know about the author.Either he was very old or he had a proclivity for the vintage. His briefcase says as much: tan, leather, mid-twentieth century—the sort corporate grunts carried back to their white-picket-fence homes at the...
Photograph of a kid in a bus corridor.

The Bus Years (2003-2006)

The days along the bus route blur together, traveling to and from her trailer home, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, an hour each way. She is the first kid on the bus and the last kid off. The days along the bus route blur together, traveling to and from her...
a textured yellow background

Theory of Care

“yellow textile on brown wooden table” (2020), Noah Morgan. Courtesy of Unsplash. Magnolia trees that open their flowerslike doves coming to wingspan. Freshsoup dumplings, hot gelatin runningdown my face before I flick a napkinacross the downpour. Husking...

Portrait of My Mother, Circa 2001

Lost in the leaves’ swing, I am trying to shake off their green, buttermilk yellow.The refrigerator hums and drums like a whining giant.This house song draws me to her, captured, hanging from a California magnet.Obsidian hair covers her shoulders, melts into her...
Black-and-white block print of a rooster crowing. Behind the rooster there is a small building in the distance.

Learning to Drink Black Coffee in Arkansas

I grew up in a house near the Randal Tyson Recreational Complex in Springdale, Arkansas. For sixth and seventh grade, I went to Helen Tyson Middle School, just down the road from Don Tyson Parkway, which would take you to the corporate headquarters of the...