PubLab Journal

Reassembling the publishing industry, one issue at a time. An annual journal by @LARB_Workshop & @LAReviewofBooks. Issue 9.0 is out now.

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

Presenting Publab 2023: (dis)connection, (dis)illusion, (dis)embodiment. Featuring new essays, fiction, and poetry, we’re closing the distances between us. https://t.co/XRzYvcVhGx

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“Yvonne hated the hospital—all the poking and prodding, not to mention the delays that come with testing, processing, and clinical handoffs between staff.”

In “Room For Error,” Simone Zapata grapples with her late aunt’s cancer diagnosis.

https://t.co/yGypKuTnvS

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

"She didn’t care much for marriage itself, but the shoes made a lifetime of unpaid domestic labor seem like a fair exchange.”

When the shoe doesn’t fit, chaos, bloodshed, and tears ensue. Read Iman Iftikhar’s “Broad Feet” now: https://t.co/pRwbPJOvs2

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“They were worried about her health, her skin...her prospects as a bride. Her body belonged to the Islam-ish Republic of Aunties.”

Iman Iftikhar's “Broad Feet” sends up patriarchal ideas of beauty, femininity, and autonomy: https://t.co/pRwbPJOvs2

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“We took our measurements in private / and never shared the numbers.”

A situationship struggles to bear fruit in Aishat Babatunde’s “Eighteen Months of Almost.” https://t.co/76bvCzM0Ky

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“Eighteen months we passed a handful of seeds / back and forth over the same field. / You plant it. No, you.” Can two proud lovers reap their relationship if they never sow its seeds? https://t.co/pkR1B3UF4r

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

"You will be promoted and may move along your career path once the individual in front of you has advanced further." Tye Iverson on the compromises we make to advance in "A Corporate Digest." https://t.co/cZyyNWHV85

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

"Surely, he was liked, and that self-assurance dripped out between his teeth as he lip-synched what they had called him: a perfect fit."

A young boy navigates entry into an industry intent on swallowing him whole in Tye Iverson's "A Corporate Digest."

https://t.co/cZyyNWIsXD

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“Body horror presents the explicit image of a fleshed-out character turning into a body that’s falling apart.”

Read Adrian Mendoza on what body horror offers trans and disabled individuals in Publab 9.0: https://t.co/hVm6pX5SBV

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“What many people have yet to reckon with is that the body has limits. It is also inevitably, and tragically, always going to be perceived.”

Read Adrian Mendoza’s “On Body Horror” on how the genre confronts anxieties around disability and aging: https://t.co/hVm6pX5SBV

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“She was working her way toward becoming a matcha latte drinker, but she was not quite there yet. She found the taste of matcha too strong.”

In “Self Improvement,” Ana Oliveira’s disciplined protagonist has a taste for the ideal life.

https://t.co/9a8jbuRLC8

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“It wasn’t that she was unhappy; she was not. It wasn’t that she felt unfulfilled; she did not. It was an alienating emptiness that would creep in every once in a while.”

In “Self-Improvement,” Ana Oliveira reveals the cracks in our personal pursuits.

https://t.co/9a8jbuRLC8

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

Transcend the body, rupture your psyche, sink deep into the earth—go beyond with us in PubLab Issue 9.0, out now.

https://t.co/VqgFNvtI8o

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

A translator of the everyday, a medium of ritual and routine. Monica Carrier’s world is one where the sacred meets the absurd. Commune with her art portfolio, on view now in PubLab 8.0. https://t.co/v9HOkgKFnk

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

In Monica Carrier’s work, she acts more like a medium or translator than an artist. Carrier’s world unfolds in PubLab 2025, out now.
https://t.co/v9HOkgKFnk

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“As I age, I find myself to be more at peace with myself.” The wisdom of life and womanhood travels across generations in @thewhywhygirl’s “Aging Like Fine Wine.” Read in PubLab 8.0.
https://t.co/pGOUzeGFg7

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“Which one of us is the elder, then, and which the truly young at heart?” @thewhywhygirl shares the wisdom of a life well lived in “Aging Like Fine Wine,” for PubLab 8.0.
https://t.co/pGOUzeGFg7

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“Holding her fatherless child and her Mennonite faith tight as the train slowed into a little outpost, nearly lost in a sea of pale prairie grass, did she doubt God?” Melinda Mullet chronicles her homesteading foremothers’ resilience. https://t.co/EgDd0wU9Z2

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

“It took more than some blowing dust to make her bow her faithfully covered head in submission.” Melinda Mullet traces her familial lineage of female icons back to the early 20th century in Montana. https://t.co/EgDd0wU9Z2

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

Who gets to decide a city’s identity? Abel Reyes weighs Boise’s past of moral panic and persecution against its modern, pinkwashed profile in “On Infamous Crimes Against Nature.” https://t.co/l3cF060V3i

[PubLab Journal @LARBPubLab]

In “On Infamous Crimes Against Nature,” Abel Reyes examines how the scandal that ensued complicates the city’s current reputation as a queer safe haven. Read now in the newest issue of PubLab 8.0. https://t.co/l3cF060V3i