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 crowd of onlookers watch the flames consume the structure.

The Execution

The Execution “The Burning of the Mansion House, Queen Square” (1831-32), William James Müller. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was the twenty-fourth of December and my firm had given us the day off. I thought I would spend the day at home,...

Two hands gently hold a large weathered horse skull. The photo is in black and white.

Winter Blues

Maybe it was just the Winter, seeping through my bones into my heart, the grasp of its icy hands against my bare neck. But then I woke up in June, sunlight bathing me in...

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...

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...

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...

A woman in a patterned skirt lies supine on a green bed next to a dog. Her hands cover her face. Her feet are bare, and hang off the edge of the bed.

Monica Carrier Art Portfolio

Monica Carrier Art Portfolio “The Marriage Bed” (2022). Ink on synthetic paper. 60 x 60. Copyright Monica Carrier, 2025. Domesticity gets deified in Monica Carrier’s collection, bringing high and low together to showcase the absurdities and sincerities of daily life....

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...

I Call My Hound Rage and He Moves

He walks backward on command, thick fur teeming with grays reversing back to flat.After he’s fed I see him swimming the Pacific in jagged loops and gulp-frantic swirls.He holds my salt in his mouth a red rubber ball. He gnaws at the tides.He moves when I move. When I...