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...

Oil on canvas depiction of a wrestling scene, a man pinned on the ground, with people watching.

On Infamous Crimes Against Nature

What began as unremarkable arrests in the quiet suburbs of Boise, Idaho, quickly escalated into a scandal that gripped the nation. On Halloween night in 1955, three men—Ralph Cooper, Charles Brokaw, and...

A bronze cast of two people's clasped hands.

Echo of Her Dreams

FROM AN EARLY AGE, as the daughter of immigrants, you see resilience reveal itself in small, unnoticed moments. It comes as translating for your mother, sitting in waiting rooms with your imagination and alertness side by side, and watching your parents try to...

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...

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 crowd of onlookers watch the flames consume the structure.

The Execution

The Execution “The Burning of the Mansion House, Queen Square” (1831-32), William James Müller. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was the twenty-fourth of December and my firm had given us the day off. I thought I would spend the day at home,...

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...

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...