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.

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...

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...

A dreamy, abstract watercolor of a river with a figure standing next to it.

Autopsy of Memory

Ode to the wrinkle forming just slightly left of the center between my eyebrows. I’ve turned 28 and my skin has started to shrink, to pull, and my expressions now stay half a second longer, locked in time. Sometimes I try to pull the line out with a gua sha, tugging...

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...

A grayscale drawing of three nude male figures in a dreamlike, symbolic landscape: one lies reclined in the foreground, another stands and reaches toward a spectral third figure emerging from a column of light, evoking themes of reflection, longing, and spiritual connection.

I Am Not Ready But It Is Time

I’m moving a black shadow. The gall sleeps top and toewith the somnambulist and leavesno dissonance.Every year is my last year. Every day is my only day. Every waiting room rotates its available seats. The contestants walk until the music stops, and find no eliminated...

Abstract black ink painting featuring fluid, organic forms and circular splashes that resemble cells, spores, or cosmic matter, with dripping textures and dynamic motion against a white background.

Is Your Outfit Saying More than You Are?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK. Manhattan. The Fashion District. Wednesday, February 15, 2023. Breaths hang heavy in the winter evening air as the final day of New York Fashion Week draws to a close. The streets buzz with the residual energy of runway shows and after-parties. The...

The deconstruction bodies are sitting together in a garden.

mama sārah and me

facing my mother in her lavish living room, i blow a red balloon. my younger sister, mellow with hash, tosses a yellow one onto the carpet while my older sister fretfully adds cheese sambūsa, warag ʿanab, and sticky toffee pudding to the menu. a sign boasting the ages...

An old tree overlooks a dark valley. The tree has been blasted in half; its trunk is splintered into an upper and lower section.

My Suitcase of Fragments

I’m sitting on the bed, unpacking my suitcase. I’m not entirely sure where I am. Somewhere near the border of France and Switzerland. From the window: a bell tower, a smudge of sky, and the kind of greenery that feels alive. Spring, or something like it. The house...