The launch of Pacific Review Issue 44 brought students, faculty, families and community members together Dec. 3 inside Pfau Library 4005 to celebrate the breadth of creative work produced across the CSUSB campus. The annual literary journal, themed “Roots, Regret and Revelations,” features poetry, fiction, investigative journalism, photography and visual art, offering a cross section of the voices that make up the university’s creative community.
Rather than distributing printed zines, editors guided attendees to the journal’s website, pacificreview.csusb.edu, where the full issue is available as an online flipbook or as a downloadable PDF for readers who want to print their own copies. The room itself was decorated with paper trees that invited guests to “leaf a regret” or “take a revelation” on small paper leaves and by placing them on the branches, an interactive detail that brought all the attendees into the theme’s conversation.
The event opened with a written reflection delivered by contributor and student editor Abigail Gabera. Her message explained how the thematic trio emerged as the backbone of the issue. Gabera wrote that roots, regret and revelations “fundamentally shape the human experience” and that the theme offered students and contributors space to confront histories, turning points and personal truths. The introduction set an intimate mood for the readings that followed.
The journal’s faculty editor, Kate Simonian, said after the event that the issue’s direction grew organically from the work students selected. “I am part of a wonderful team of students who do all the work, and I merely oversee their efforts,” Simonian said. She explained that the editorial team read all submissions blind and scored them collectively. That process often revealed pieces she had not initially noticed. “There were times when they picked something I hadn’t really seen, and I had to go back and realize there was merit I didn’t recognize,” she said. “My own subjectivity has limits. The students constantly remind me of that.”
Simonian said that she had expected to get a lot of “nostalgic, kind of abstract work” but instead saw works that were “profoundly urgent, politically engaged, but also permeated with emotion.” She also acknowledged that the theme served as an entry point rather than a strict organizing principle. “Roots, regret and revelation are three massive topics, so it is pretty much a grab bag,” she said. “We wanted to take the best work we received.”
The final issue reflects that openness, featuring more than 40 contributors across genres, from undergraduate poets to international writers to visual artists and journalists. The table of contents includes everything from personal lyric essays to bilingual poems, landscape photography and one major investigative piece.
That investigative work, “The Rape of Their Land: Brief Histories at San Bernardino Valley College,” written by Miguel Padilla, stood out both in the issue and during the event. Padilla’s piece traces the buried history of an Indigenous cemetery located beneath San Bernardino Valley College, drawing from archival maps, land surveys and 19th century newspaper records. The piece examines how the graves were disrupted during agricultural development and how the history largely disappeared from official narratives.
Padilla said the reporting consumed him. “This piece became larger than life for me. It became my life, essentially. It consumed me,” he said. He described cross-checking early twentieth-century maps with present-day locations and walking public spaces to match physical evidence with archival descriptions. “Going out and extrapolating all this extraneous information into something that is synthesizable in a single story was everything,” he said.
Padilla said he submitted the piece because the journal felt like a meaningful home for it. “Professor Kate is so awesome.” He said, “She’s such an advocate, not only for the students here on campus, but for the English department, and creative writers.” He is looking forward to continuing to serve the local LGBT youth community in his future career goals.
Another highlight of the launch was poet Consuelo’s reading of “Ride the Bull Worm,” a piece that blends their home in North Fontana with memories of family in Durango. Their contributor bio in the issue notes that this is their first publication outside of the classroom, and their interview after the event reflected how personal the poem is to them. “I was working on my midterm and listening to a sad song,” they said. “These five words kept circling in my head: yucca, worm, bull, rodeo and Durango. That is usually how a poem starts for me.”
Consuelo said the extended submission window allowed them time to send the poem, which they described as connected to both landscape and family history. “I’m really proud of this poem because it talks about my home life now, but it also reflects on my roots and the time I spent with my family in Durango,” they said. They described caring for their tía after lung surgery and developing a relationship that surpassed the limits of their Spanish. “Even in our limited communication, there was a connection we formed. That feeling shaped the poem,” they said.
Readers throughout the event shared works that explored illness, memory, migration, faith, identity and grief. The range of genres in the issue echoed the diversity of the readers themselves. Each piece is in conversation with the other pieces and with the theme, creating a layered, multifaceted publication.
As the launch concluded, Simonian thanked the Fall 2025 literary production class for the work they put into the issue, from soliciting submissions to editing, designing and event planning. She encouraged students to join next semester’s cohort, which will begin developing Issue 45 for release December 2026. The course introduces students to publishing through hands-on experience, culminating in the launch of the next issue in a year.
Pacific Review Issue 44 is available at pacificreview.csusb.edu, where readers can explore the digital flipbook or download the PDF. The launch underscored the depth of creative work at CSUSB and the growing community of writers, artists and editors who shape the journal each year. While the theme rooted the issue in ideas of history, reckoning and clarity, the event made clear that its true center is the voices that bring those ideas to life.
