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.

Overlapping shadows of hands that form an enigmatic figure over a blue background.

Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

There were maybe three reasons this might not work. First, he hadn’t been fasting like each book strictly recommended. That day, Jason had a large breakfast and lunch, all without any worry. Second, it wasn’t midnight. It was three in the afternoon, the sun was out...

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...

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 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...

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...

A zoomed in picture of Georgia O'Keefe's neck.

On Body Horror

I WALK INTO a job interview with my mind divided between answering the questions and keeping my tics at bay. I tell my body to sit still and relax my face into a soft, hirable smile. In response, my knee bounces, my hands flex, and my brow furrows. I beg my mouth to...

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...