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.

Abstract floral cluster with swirling lavender petals around a dark central opening, orange-and-white striped tongue-like forms, and coral-textured petals covered in small pore-like dots.

Daniela Martén Rothe Portfolio

“Diosa Lenguona” (2021) Oil on canvas. 150×120 cm. Copyright Daniela Marten Rothe (2026)

A four-layered mixed-media collage piece, with a purple figure silhouette at the center.

Into Bits

It was barely 10 p.m., and Lane had just broken a Black Label all over the dance floor. It wasn’t her fault, really. She’d been pushing past a gaggle of glimmering twinks to get behind the DJ booth when one of their bony elbows jutted out and jabbed her right in the...

A sepia photo of a woman's feet with pink shattered glass sprinkled on top.

Broad Feet

Nazuk loved the chappal store. The summer brought slippers, open-toed sandals, kolhapuris, and hawai chappals that made even the fatties buoyant. In the winter, ladies loved pumps, court heels, comfort moccasins for the grannies or the closeted lesbians, and the...

Antique tin box painted with nautical imagery: a light house overlooking two sail boats in a rocky sea.

I’ll Meet You at the Ocean

The smell of freshly mowed grass almost made me sick. Its underlying stench of gasoline mixed with the herbaceous musk of the grass was reminiscent of past summers in this neighborhood. I liked the smell then. Our house’s lawn was littered with unkempt weeds and wild...

A Black and white image of a man walking down the street with a motion blur effect

Enter the Pyrocene…Through Sebald: How W. G. Sebald Anticipated a World Full of Fire

IN TROUBLED TIMES, works of fiction blaze a path between bygone eras and the present. The best stand the test of time and offer a cogent perspective on our present world. Readers looking for insight into our twenty-first-century world and some of its foremost...

A woman faces away from the viewer, gazing into an oval mirror. The reflection is that of a Nahua woman.

I See You

I see you, Malitzen, the betrayer and the victim. You did what you did out of fear and out of smarts. They named you “She who speaks lively.” And you spoke. You spoke all the tongues available to you to make a living, to keep alive. I see your dark eyes like dark...