Celebrating 15 Years of LARB

LARB breaks onto the scene with Ben Ehrenreich’s “The Death of the Book,” the first post on the newly minted Los Angeles Review of Books Tumblr.

We debut our regular newsletter. LARB's newsletters collect highlights from the week on LARB and the LARB Radio Hour and keep our readers informed about upcoming programs and events.

Founder Tom Lutz speaks with LAist about LARB’s mission and the importance of a West Coast literary scene.

Our first e-publication, a compilation of the first six months of LARB, comes out. In the years since, LARB has produced topical e-publications on issues ranging from reflections on the pandemic to the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

LARB starts producing audio and video content for the site, including this early podcast and predecessor to the LARB Radio Hour. Check out the LARB Radio Hour here, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Readership skyrockets from 181,000 readers to over 2 million with the migration of LARB to its first official website.

The epistolary TV criticism of Dear Television officially joins LARB as its own section.

LARB incorporates as a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization and introduces its core membership program. Our members sustain our work here at LARB and receive perks including special access to discounts, events, and our quarterly Book Club discussions; a print and digital subscription to the LARB Quarterly; a limited-edition LARB tote; and much more.

Our official events programming kicks off with “An Evening with Kirk Johnson.” LARB hosts numerous readings, discussions, cocktails and conversations, Luminary Dinners, and more every year. Find out about our past and upcoming events below.

LARB’s first internship program, a precursor to the Publishing Workshop, begins. LARB continues to offer internships to college students year round.

LARB moves into its first official office in Glendale.

LARB's Book Club launches, with a first selection of Jonathan Lethem’s Dissident Gardens. Other Book Club picks have included Alain Mabanckou’s Black Moses, Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island, and more. Join the conversation by becoming a LARB Member today!

The inaugural issue of the LARB print quarterly journal publishes. LARB Quarterly features original fiction, poetry, essays, and art. Pick up a copy in our shop, or become a member to receive print and digital access to issues plus other great perks year-round.

LARB launches our Luminary Dinner series with special guest T. C. Boyle. The evenings feature dinner and conversations with prominent literary and cultural figures such as Margaret Atwood, Norman Lear, Walter Mosley, Jane Smiley, Frank Gehry, James Ellroy, Viet Thanh Nguyen, George Saunders, Charles Yu, and more.

LARB launches our first year-end matching grant campaign. LARB depends on the generous giving of matching donors, our members, and supporters to sustain our work each year.

We celebrate three years of LARB with a panel discussion between Tom Lutz, Julia Lupton, and Jonathan Alexander.

We launch our official Channels and Affiliates program, which included 55 Voices for Democracy, Avidly, China Channel, diaCRITICS, Guernica, Marginalia Review of Books, The Podcast Review, Transformations, and more.

From Glendale to Sunset Boulevard: LARB officially moves to our office in the historic Crossroads of the World complex in Hollywood.

The LARB Radio Hour, with hosts Tom Lutz, Laurie Winer, and Seth Greenland, moves to a prime-time spot on local station KPFK 90.7. Tune in to new episodes of the Radio Hour on Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT at KPFK, or listen to the episodes here or wherever podcasts are available.

LARB receives a $100,000 grant from the My LA2050 Grants Challenge, an initiative launched in 2011 by the Goldhirsh Foundation to bring attention to L.A. writers and artists, at least one a day for 2016.

LARB presents our first ever LARB/UCR Lifetime Achievement Award to writer John Rechy, a pioneer of modern LGBTQ+ literature. Subsequent winners of this award have included Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Maxine Hong Kingston, Margaret Atwood, Walter Mosley, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Juan Felipe Herrera, Sandra Cisneros, Linda Hogan, Ishmael Reed, Percival Everett, Dave Eggers, Quincy Troupe, and Rigoberto González.

LARB celebrates five years with a website redesign.

Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman take the reins at LARB Radio Hour, which has featured a wide and illustrious range of contemporary authors, filmmakers, and thinkers. Tune into the trio’s very first episode all together below!

LARB and Granta host an evening of cocktails and conversation with five of Granta’s “Best of Young American Novelists”: Joshua Cohen, Lauren Groff, Karan Mahajan, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Esmé Weijun Wang.

We kicked off our 2017 membership drive with an evening with Mary Gaitskill at the home of LARB founding editors Tom Lutz and Laurie Winer.

The inaugural LARB Publishing Workshop takes place on the USC campus. To date, over 500 fellows from a wide variety of backgrounds have joined us to learn, grow, and break into the publishing industry. Applications are now open for the 2026 Publishing Workshop.

LARB Books launches, with the mission of “promoting and disseminating rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts.”

PubLab, the official student magazine of the LARB Publishing Workshop, and a LARB Channel, launches.

LARB Books publishes its very first title and first LARB Classics book: A Stab in the Dark by Facundo Bernal, translated by Anthony Seidman. Over two years, LARB Books published 10 titles, including the inaugural Tómas Rivera Book Prize winner, J. L. Torres’s Migrations.

LARB partners with Hauser & Wirth Publishers to host LITLIT, or the Little Literary Fair, a two-day book fair celebrating independent booksellers, book publishers, and bookmakers from Los Angeles and beyond. Join us for LITLIT 2026, which will take place June 6-7 at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

The pandemic transforms the LARB Publishing Workshop into a virtual program, where 56 fellows are able to connect and gain valuable insight into the publishing industry.

LARB Editor-in-Chief Boris Dralyuk wins inaugural Kukula Award for nonfiction book reviewing for his review of Stalin’s Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival; The Life of Mikhail Sholokhov by Brian J. Boeck. In the following years, several more LARB reviews win or become finalists of this award, including those of Aidan Forth, Robert Allen Papinchak, Scott W. Stern, and Benno Weiner.

LARB begins hosting virtual events and talks on the pressing issues of the day, including a conversation between Jody Armour and Melina Abdullah on racial oppression in the United States, and a discussion of the Hong Kong democracy movement with Samuel Chu, Mary Kay Magistad, US Representative Katie Porter, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom.

By the end of 2020, LARB reaches 7.7 million readers annually and has published nine books, 28 Quarterly issues, and thousands of articles.

LARB launches a new website design and a 10-month celebration of a decade of LARB.

LARB launches a monthlong series, Semipublic Intellectual Sessions, which draws participants into accessible, thought-provoking conversations on topics ranging from technology and misinformation to the place of criticism.

LARB repartners with Hauser & Wirth Publishers to connect small presses, local businesses, and bibliophiles in a two-day festival. With five panel discussions and two interactive workshops, LARB helps reintroduce physical spaces for literary community and conversation after the pandemic.

Magally Miranda Alcázar, Mike the Poet, Chris Tyler, and Michelle Chihara partner with LARB to lead insightful oral history tours through six blocks of Silver Lake to honor late urban theorist and social historian Mike Davis.

Kyla Wazana Tompkins wins a James Beard Award for her essay “On Boba,” published in the LARB Quarterly.

LARB explores the innovative power of sustainable practice and collaboration with Everybody.World to host readings and conversations around LARB’s Quarterly pieces and Everybody.World’s summer shorts collection.

LARB is awarded the sixth annual Whiting Literary Magazine Prize for being “a pillar of West Coast literary culture with national impact.”

In July, LARB moves into the historic Granada Buildings.

LARB and the Berggruen Institute host a panel discussion titled Writing Climate Futures, featuring David Wallace-Wells, Jenny Offill, Bharat Venkat, and Jonathan Blake in conversation about education, fictitious worlds, and how we push the public discourse around climate change.

LARB launches new writing workshops with classes by Nadja Spiegelman and Lauren Markham on personal essays and incorporating research into writing for the public. Other workshops since have featured A.S. Hamrah, Katie Kadue, Sarah LaBrie, and Matthew Weiner on the creative process, film and literary criticism, and more.

LARB helps unite the people of Los Angeles to support the Pasadena Community Job Center by donating funds from author readings in a fire relief benefit event.

CSU Los Angeles Community Impact Media students premiere a short documentary they made about LARB.

Lit Hub names LARB Radio Hour the best literary podcast of the year.