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.

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...

Layered digital collage of three pixelated figures standing in front of a Buchla machine.

Echoes of the Fourth Person: A Dilemma of Sociality in Electronic Music

ONE PERSON is never enough. Buzzing away on my bassoon in a practice room or listening to The Strokes through a dime-sized speaker lodged in my ear are not typically lauded as the pinnacle of musical experience. One of the platitudes of music is that sound is social:...

Unfinished sketch of a woman staring into the distance while sitting at a table with a cup, saucer, and pitcher.

Self-improvement

Self-improvement “Tea” (c. 1890), Mary Cassatt. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art. It was one of those clear, sunny October days: crisp, bright mornings; intense, red afternoons; chilly, slow evenings. It was Sunday, so at 5 p.m. she went to yoga...

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...

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...

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...

Abstract floral cluster with swirling lavender petals around a dark central opening, orange-and-white striped tongue-like forms, and coral-textured petals covered in small pore-like dots.

Daniela Martén Rothe Portfolio

“Diosa Lenguona” (2021) Oil on canvas. 150×120 cm. Copyright Daniela Marten Rothe (2026)

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...