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 ghostly portrait of Anne Boleyn by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Anne Boleyn in the Manosphere: What Ava Pickett’s hot new period piece can teach us about misogyny’s past and present

On April 26, 2025, just over one week before Ava Pickett’s 1536 premiered for its sold-out run at the Almeida Theatre in London, 38-year-old Owen Lawrence attacked the popular Otley Run pub crawl in Leeds, England, seriously injuring two women. In January of that...

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...

An elaborate castle structure perches atop a monster's jaw, which swallows condemned souls.

A Corporate Digest

David followed the woman in the navy pantsuit toward a moment six years of school had been pointing to—countless dorm rooms, textbooks, and microwave dinners converging. Her five-inch-high heels led him down a precisely built hallway. It was simple yet thoroughly...

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...

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...

Of Mirrors, of Stones

we throw a stone in the mirror / it bounces back—Ivan de MonbrisonIn 1835, German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a formula for making mirrors with silvered glass, turning the bespoke vessels once reserved for the wealthy into a mass-manufactured household...

A nineteenth-century stereograph of two side-by-side identical prints. Both are a photograph of a bride and groom during their wedding march, with their wedding party following behind. The image is largely black and white, excepting the pink bridesmaids' dresses and blue-green palm fronds surrounding the group.

Monogamy is Dead, Long Live Monogamy!

When I was a teenager, my mother died. A few years later, my father remarried. I now have the language to describe grief as an encounter with what could have been and cannot be, one in which we negotiate with imagined futures after loss. At that time, however, I found...