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.

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Cemetery: A Colonial Time Portal

All India is full of neglected graves that date from the beginning of the eighteenth century—tombs of forgotten colonels of corps long since disbanded; mates of East India men who went on shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, agents, writers, and ensigns...

Challenging the Peripheral: Reading Assam in Reema Rajbanshi’s Sugar, Smoke, Song

 Growing up in the capital city of Guwahati, Assam, life was marked by recurring floods and occasional violence, shaping a unique resilience in middle-class girls like us. We were taught two critical lessons with utmost seriousness: never to venture out...
Watercolor painting

Untitled, Still

           for 奶奶, in the land of steady hands Upstroke, downbeat, the waves fathomtowards the shallow surface of spring—            hiss      lake foam                 of           thin                  rain                     slicked                        ...
Marble bust

Fragment 52: I do not expect to touch the sky

i do not expect to touch the sky—SapphoIAphrodite,my once-was friend.your gift seems no blessing.you pull bodies togetherunmindful of the priceto be paid.you showed me a world called We:a universe made just for two. andtrusting, i jumped in completely.only to...
Portrait of a young woman as a saint.

Joy Reyes Portfolio

Memories become larger than life in Joy Reyes’s mixed-media collection, embodying familial strength and love passed down through generations. In a vivid display of color and texture, the Dallas-based artist marries iconic imagery from her Mexican heritage with...
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...

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 photograph of a blurred female dancer spinning in a thin silk dress.

Elizabeth Stoddard’s Unruly Girlhood

Weird girls are having a literary moment. A search for “weird girl books” on TikTok confirms this, yielding hundreds of videos celebrating the genre. Authors like Mona Awad, Sayaka Murata, and Ottessa Moshfegh feature heavily. These books vary widely in content but...