
2021 | issue 4.0
Table of Contents

Pass By, Hedwige Jacobs
CATEGORIES
Creative Prose
Who is Zooming Who? Rituals of Shame in the White Academic Institution
An elite white academic institution in California has convened a virtual workshop on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)...
You Stinker
There were plenty of kids we made fun of in high school — the girl with the face tattoo; the foreign exchange student from...
Excerpt of HOW I PLAYED MY CARDS
The front yard of the house we bought in Lebanon, Illinois, needed a lot of work. The driveway wasn’t quite level. Every...
A Personal Transcript from the Samuel Oschin Planetarium Showing: OCEANS OF GRAVITY
content warning: childhood sexual abuseSpace is a concept that most can never understand; Autumn and I, we know it well.We...
The Unseen Nature of Learning
It’s always difficult to see them when I log on to teach class. Crammed into a small room with one laptop, two of the five...
Growing Pains
Mom and Dad knocked briefly and rushed into my room. Half-asleep, I dug one foot, then the other, into the carpet. It was a...
Some Sort of Hostage Situation
Like most Tuesdays, we spend the night out at our favorite Divisadero Street dive bar, swapping dirty stories for fun over...
The Stone
2021At the top of the hill whose slope is bisected by the Living Stone, there lies a ruined castle that once belonged to a...
Failure of Trees
“The failure of trees is inherently unpredictable.” — Caswell Memorial State ParkIt’s strange to have the idea on the boat...
Essays
A Critique of Racial Inequality in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, a tragedy likely written in late 1593 and set in ancient Rome, is a meditation on early...
Letting your DNA “Show You the Way”: Selling the Politics of Genetics and the Business of Race
As a historian, and as a person interested in most narratives of the past, I realize the unique value of Ancestry.com as a...
Måneskin: Italian Rockers on a Journey for Global Human Connection
“Rock and Roll Never Dies!” From buskers on La Via del Corso to Eurovision winners, Måneskin shows what it means to earn a...
The Soothing Aesthetics of the Supermarket
I love the supermarket — fiercely, obsessively, weirdly. I go to the supermarket when I feel overwhelmed. And it turns out...
Seeing Ecocatastrophe: Environmentalism and the Aesthetics of Climate Change
It’s a truism for Octavia Butler fans: the postapocalyptic California landscape of her landmark Parable of the...
In Pursuit of THE PURSUIT OF LOVE
The 2020s have arrived, bringing sensational headlines on the state of the global economy that anticipate “another Roaring...
Poetry
every girl like the last day of summer
1.Don’t marry the one you are most passionately in love with because the highs are high, but the lows —my mother once said...
Rapid Transit
Strangers packed in love seatsdull metal bars covered in stolenlives to grip overheadstation names bear new font butchalk...
Going Out
I went out todayfor the first timein a while.I thought about wearingmy new black dressbut decided it might be betterfor a...
Talking to my Mother While She’s in Chemo
Don’t tell me about the osprey in Louisiana.Tell me something square instead.I remember the rocky river that ran behind the...
Saturday’s Haze
Texas Chocolatedouble butter-sticks h e e t c a k ewith ...
A Tzintzún (Hummingbird) Emerging
I don’t really know who chose who.I just stopped holding my heart’s emotions andthen, when I was about to die,you...
Corners
It might have been the cold or the urge to be alone.I couldn’t take it any longer.I hunkered down in the corner of the...
afloat
Water is Life We all begin, cradled in the water. The storm of our mother’s womb, we, torrential in our desire to be known...
Soulmates
I.Walking in the park at 12 on a Sunday, watchingthe trees and people writhinghow could they have risenso early? I nearly...
The Princess Writes by Candlelight
Artist Statement:I first came across the myth-like story of the infamous “Royal Family of Oudh” in Ellen Barry’s New York...
Visual Arts
Liz Hickok Art Portfolio
SAN FRANCISCO IN JELL-O AND GROUND WATERS Bright yellow, red, green, blue, and orange Jell-O structures replicate San...
Jamesy Turner Art Portfolio
ARTIST’S STATEMENT I love expressing my anxieties and neuroses through the lens of horror. Through printmaking, comics, and...
Hedwige Jacobs Portfolio
Hedwige Jacobs is a Dutch artist, born in Singapore, who currently lives and works in Houston. She holds a BFA from the...
Brittney Frantece Portfolio
Brittney Frantece is a writer, artist, educator, curator, and PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of...
Rebecca Mills Portfolio
Rebecca Mills is a Westchester, NY-based artist and arts professional. She is a cosmic surrealist whose artwork is based in...
Brittan Hart Portfolio
ARTIST’S STATEMENT These are pictures of Spokane made with a plastic toy film camera. With only two settings, the...
Masthead
EDITORIAL ESSAY
Cheng-Chai Chiang |
EDITORIAL FICTION
Sam Bowers
Claire Dee
Rebecca Flores
Carly Lewis
Iremis Lorenzo
Jacqueline Ruvalcaba
Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría
Rylie Walsh
EDITORIAL CREATIVE FICTION
Penina Eilberg-Schwartz
Lianna Harrington
Ben Rawlins
Alina I. Scott
EDITORIAL POETRY
nanya jhingran
Ben Rawlins
Emma K. Shibley
COPYEDITING
Sam Bowers Rebecca Chhay Cheng-Chai Chiang Stefanie Doucette Norrell Edwards Penina Eilberg-Schwartz Alizeh Kohari Rebecca Lipperini Maura Pellettieri Quinn Roberts |
Jacqueline Ruvalcaba |
ART DIRECTION
Jazmin Benton
Rebecca Chhay
Norrell Edwards
Holly Genovese
nanya jhingran
Maura Pellettieri
PRODUCTION
Jazmin Benton Sam Bowers Claire Dee Rebecca Flores Carly Lewis Rebecca Lipperini Maura Pellettieri |
Ben Rawlins Jacqueline Ruvalcaba Alec Sandoval Alina I. Scott Lillian Sellati Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría Rylie Walsh Sam Warren |
SOCIAL MEDIA
Claire Dee
Stefanie Doucette
Penina Eilberg-Schwartz
Lianna Harrington
Alizeh Kohari
Carly Lewis
Iremis Lorenzo
Alec Sandoval
Thomas J. Sojka
ADVISORS
BORIS DRALYUK, EDITORIAL ADVISOR
KATELYN KEATING, EDITORIAL AND WEB ADVISOR
LAUREN KINNEY, SOCIAL MEDIA ADVISOR
PUBLAB ISSUE 4.0 IS A PRODUCTION OF THE 2021 LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS PUBLISHING WORKSHOP