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.

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...

A scanned, hand-cut ink drawing of an abstract organic form resembling a brain, distorted through digital manipulation.

What You Missed While You Were Dead

What You Missed While You Were Dead “Conversation Ended” (2025), NIGHTSHADE (Alejandro Concas-Rivas). Courtesy of artist. Welcome to the Memory Database, Charlie. Who would you like to speak to? Who would I like to speak to? Every time I come here, I try to talk to...

A man with a white beard doffs his hat at the viewer. Beside him is a table laden with dead game from the hunt. A goose, a stag, a hare, a boar, and many more animals lie with their mouths open.

I Get So Hungry When You Say You Love Me: Feminist Cannibalism

TWO UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS about Mimi Cave’s 2022 horror-romance Fresh: One, the meatball of human flesh, resting heavy and crimson atop a bed of pasta, is mouthwatering. Two, Sebastian Stan, playing an entrepreneur and chef specializing in human flesh, is hotter than...

Four green Petri dishes with dark industrial silhouettes.

Kari Varner Porfolio

Kari Varner Porfolio Artist Statement The echoes of industry and human presence are inscribed upon the landscape. This body of work explores these traces, along with the ecological and economic value we assign to altered environments. I employ processes that range...

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...

Black-and-white portrait of a young man staring blankly at the camera, with a bold black bar obscuring his eyes and the text “IT ALL WENT WRONG FOR YOU TOO SOON” typed across it, evoking themes of loss, anonymity, and untimely tragedy.

Happy Heavenly Birthday Brad Renfro

"Manipulated mugshot of Brad Renfro (original 2000)" (2025), NIGHTSHADE (Alejandro Concas-Rivas). Courtesy of artist.WHEN JOSH SCHAEDEL invited me to contribute a text to accompany Steve Kado’s exhibition Stairs at The Fulcrum Press, I thought about how Kado once said...

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....

Abstract black ink painting featuring fluid, organic forms and circular splashes that resemble cells, spores, or cosmic matter, with dripping textures and dynamic motion against a white background.

Is Your Outfit Saying More than You Are?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK. Manhattan. The Fashion District. Wednesday, February 15, 2023. Breaths hang heavy in the winter evening air as the final day of New York Fashion Week draws to a close. The streets buzz with the residual energy of runway shows and after-parties. The...