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 Puerto Rican man in his 20s-30s stands in the middle of a sugar cane field during harvest, looking at the camera with one hand on his hip. He wears a wide-brimmed hat, beige pants, a leather belt, and a button-down polo shirt. His eyes and nose are obscured by the shadow of his hat. There is a blue sky in the background, and other workers harvesting sugarcane.

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny “Man in sugar cane field during harvest, Puerto Rico” (1942), Jack Delano, Photograph. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. When I first saw the NFL and...

Three women dressed in bright colors sit together on a couch and stare into the camera.

Amara Higuera Portfolio

Amara Higuera Portfolio Amara Higuera is a Mexican-American artist based in Los Angeles that experiments with the lens and its limitations to approach an identity that falls into the cracks between categories and the complex web of connections that shape it. Ranging...

Caribou antlers jut out of the snow against a pale wintery landscape.

Heretics

In the darkness of the fields, she waited, seated on the dirt as the horned man came for her. She had first thought the horns he wore were those of a caribou. They were just as grand, with moonlight gliding off their points like slivers of white off a calm lake. They...

A painting of a small island with a copse of tall dark trees in the center. In the foreground, smaller, a tall figure dressed in white stands on a boat being paddled to the center of the island by a servant.

Call Me Amalekite

"Isle of the Dead" (1880), Arnold Böcklin. Sourced from Wikimedia, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Is it enough tocall me Amalekite?A treacherous soul harbored inimperfect man. Is evilso...

An oil painting of eight abstract disembodied faces in colours of pinks, reds, blues, yellows, whites, and browns.

Maya Sibul Portfolio

Maya Sibul Portfolio “Vestiges” (2019). Oil pastel and pen on paper. 18 x 24. Copyright Maya Sibul, 2026. This collection by Maya Sibul functions as both retrospective and prospective, guiding us through its evolution from past to present. Rather than acting as a...

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...

Digital collage, banana tree layered over lush forest, at center, a black woman is blended into the landscape as her gaze follows the observer.

Saida Blair Portfolio

“Untitled (Jamaica 1)” (2023). Digital collage. Copyright Saida Blair (2026)Blair's work starts with photography; nevertheless, this medium is not a containing frame. Astute and careful, her multimedial assemblages navigate the intersection of form and the oral...

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...