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 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 Puerto Rican man in his 20s-30s stands in the middle of a sugar cane field during harvest, looking at the camera with one hand on his hip. He wears a wide-brimmed hat, beige pants, a leather belt, and a button-down polo shirt. His eyes and nose are obscured by the shadow of his hat. There is a blue sky in the background, and other workers harvesting sugarcane.

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny “Man in sugar cane field during harvest, Puerto Rico” (1942), Jack Delano, Photograph. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. When I first saw the NFL and...

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...

An oil painting of eight abstract disembodied faces in colours of pinks, reds, blues, yellows, whites, and browns.

Maya Sibul Portfolio

Maya Sibul Portfolio “Vestiges” (2019). Oil pastel and pen on paper. 18 x 24. Copyright Maya Sibul, 2026. This collection by Maya Sibul functions as both retrospective and prospective, guiding us through its evolution from past to present. Rather than acting as a...

A ghostly portrait of Anne Boleyn by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Anne Boleyn in the Manosphere: What Ava Pickett’s hot new period piece can teach us about misogyny’s past and present

On April 26, 2025, just over one week before Ava Pickett’s 1536 premiered for its sold-out run at the Almeida Theatre in London, 38-year-old Owen Lawrence attacked the popular Otley Run pub crawl in Leeds, England, seriously injuring two women. In January of that...

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...

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...

Digital collage, banana tree layered over lush forest, at center, a black woman is blended into the landscape as her gaze follows the observer.

Saida Blair Portfolio

“Untitled (Jamaica 1)” (2023). Digital collage. Copyright Saida Blair (2026)Blair's work starts with photography; nevertheless, this medium is not a containing frame. Astute and careful, her multimedial assemblages navigate the intersection of form and the oral...