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.

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....

A grayscale drawing of three nude male figures in a dreamlike, symbolic landscape: one lies reclined in the foreground, another stands and reaches toward a spectral third figure emerging from a column of light, evoking themes of reflection, longing, and spiritual connection.

I Am Not Ready But It Is Time

I’m moving a black shadow. The gall sleeps top and toewith the somnambulist and leavesno dissonance.Every year is my last year. Every day is my only day. Every waiting room rotates its available seats. The contestants walk until the music stops, and find no eliminated...

A painting of a wooden door with a variety of objects like an envelope, a photograph, a notebook, and a key on it.

Before Running Out of Time

THE MAN FACING me from the tabletop is aware of all my shortcomings. He looks strong, wholesome in his youth, with a big nose and heavy jawline. Because the eyes are too close together, he is almost ugly, but it just adds to his Apollonian quality. We’ve only just met...

An abstract painting painted in a variety of brush strokes using a colorful palette.

Ekphrasis of Tony Conrad’s “Four Violins”

Ekphrasis of Tony Conrad’s “Four Violins” “Painting with Green Center” (1913), Vasily Kandinsky. Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago. In the foreground, this chain saw tears and rips. [PUSH] Jagged tooth blade, oscillates up/down...

A heeled black leather shoe on a white pedestal.

The Women Historical Fiction Forgets

SOME WOMEN’S STORIES demand patience. I have learned this over the years through my research on food history and pouring over women’s letters, draft manuscripts, and clipped recipes. And not all of their stories are equally accessible. The papers of the most prominent...

A dreamy, abstract watercolor of a river with a figure standing next to it.

Autopsy of Memory

Ode to the wrinkle forming just slightly left of the center between my eyebrows. I’ve turned 28 and my skin has started to shrink, to pull, and my expressions now stay half a second longer, locked in time. Sometimes I try to pull the line out with a gua sha, tugging...

Abstract drawings with transition, shadow, light, resilience

Como La Luna

For my dear queer friend from Lima, Perú, Alejandra Watanabe Farro.¡Con amor y respeto por aquellas pláticas de corazón a corazón! I am like the moon,Soy como la luna,I am like the god Kútsï, the P’urhepecha deity that illuminates the night:I have multiple faces.I am...