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.

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...

An impressionist painting with a white waterfall cascading down the middle as animals swim up its current. There are animals drinking from a pool of water at the bottom of the painting. There's a bright red mill to the left of the waterfall, while a large green tree is to the right. A city skyline can be seen in the background behind the waterfall and mill.

Omniscient

Omniscient “The Bewitched Mill” (1913), Franz Marc, Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. The river hides its openingsin the marsh.In this, it forcesme to see. I paddle up the channel.The wind blows off my hood.The tree ahead is...

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...

A tunnel leading into Caracas, Venezuela, under colorful buildings and bordered by two line-drawn images of catalpa flowers.

Querida

Querida Emily Lauletta, “Caracas through Catalpa,” 2026, digital collage. Background photograph of El Paraíso tunnel and catalpa images courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. Marcello cursed through ground teeth at the backpack zipper as it caught for the fourth...

An abstract relief carving in wood with organic textures, symbolic motifs, and a central open form. The piece emphasizes contrast, movement, and the beauty of hand-carved marks.

Room for Error: On Printmaking and the Limits of the Body

Room for Error: On Printmaking and the Limits of the Body Simone Zapata, Required Transfusion (2025). Courtesy of the artist and the Pappajohn Biomedical Institute, University of Iowa. At a printmaking studio in Miami, Florida, I lay out dozens of CT scans across my...

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 close-up of several cyanotypes of a naked woman turning and ascending stairs, waving her hand, in a study of motion.

Switch Stance

All truths wait in all things—Walt WhitmanI envy surfers (coteries of loose joints) who design their lives around patterns and leave no trace.Rising with the sun (an income of energy), rushing to the edge of a flower-studded cliffwhere no words are needed. Views tell...

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...