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

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.

Four green Petri dishes with dark industrial silhouettes.

Kari Varner Porfolio

Kari Varner Porfolio Artist Statement The echoes of industry and human presence are inscribed upon the landscape. This body of work explores these traces, along with the ecological and economic value we assign to altered environments. I employ processes that range...

Yeon Jin Kim Mixed media drawing. This is a world where things seem to assemble themselves and interact within a logic yet to be discovered.

Maybe is the Most Beautiful Word in the World

Aleatoric: Solely dependent on the throw of a dice or on chance; random. There’s something barreling towards me. Hulking. I can feel it closing in. It’s starting to envelop my future body, which will be my now-body, which will be the body I might want to live in one...

An elderly couple stands side by side in front of a wooden house. The man wears a dark suit and hat, while the woman wears a long black dress and white head covering.

Iconography—Holy Mothers

Consider the work of God;who can make straight what he has made crooked?—Eccles. 7:13 (NRSV)Her name was Elizabeth Kauffman.This is the only picture I have of her, my great-great-grandmother, and she is old. Diminutive. Covered neck to dull boots in plain black...

A man with a white beard doffs his hat at the viewer. Beside him is a table laden with dead game from the hunt. A goose, a stag, a hare, a boar, and many more animals lie with their mouths open.

I Get So Hungry When You Say You Love Me: Feminist Cannibalism

TWO UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS about Mimi Cave’s 2022 horror-romance Fresh: One, the meatball of human flesh, resting heavy and crimson atop a bed of pasta, is mouthwatering. Two, Sebastian Stan, playing an entrepreneur and chef specializing in human flesh, is hotter than...

An abstract painting painted in a variety of brush strokes using a colorful palette.

Ekphrasis of Tony Conrad’s “Four Violins”

Ekphrasis of Tony Conrad’s “Four Violins” “Painting with Green Center” (1913), Vasily Kandinsky. Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago. In the foreground, this chain saw tears and rips. [PUSH] Jagged tooth blade, oscillates up/down...

A painting of a wooden door with a variety of objects like an envelope, a photograph, a notebook, and a key on it.

Before Running Out of Time

THE MAN FACING me from the tabletop is aware of all my shortcomings. He looks strong, wholesome in his youth, with a big nose and heavy jawline. Because the eyes are too close together, he is almost ugly, but it just adds to his Apollonian quality. We’ve only just met...

A small concrete dam in a wooded area overgrown with moss and graffiti, with water cascading down its face and a cartoonish green face painted beneath the flow.

Disoriented with Time: Ruins in the Switchbacks

Artist Statement In this photography series, I highlight the architectural remnants in the Switchbacks located near Spokane, Washington. Reclaimed by graffiti artists and moss, these decaying foundations and dams now burst with vibrant color, life, and arcane...

An old man laughs giddily on a rope swing. His feet are bare.

Aging Like Fine Wine

SINDHU AAJI ALWAYS opened the door with a smile and a list of questions. No matter how often this happened, I never felt prepared.I was unaccustomed to it—to questions about my life, about my work, about me—even when they came from my husband’s octogenarian...