The Citadel - LACC's Literary Journal
The Citadel is a creative literary journal published by the English & ESL Department at Los Angeles City College. First published in 1962, it has been edited by Professor Sam Eisenstein and Dr. Genevieve Patthey. Under current editorship by Sara Mortimer-Boyd, The Citadel prides itself in highlighting students’ literary work in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
The Citadel is an active journal featuring the creative works of LACC students. It also involves the LACC community at-large, inviting the neighboring communities of Los Feliz, Hollywood, Koreatown, and Silverlake and beyond to publish their works, in the hopes of fostering a community in the literary arts.
The Citadel 2026: Celebration and Reading
Come and join us for a celebratory reading of the 2026 edition of LACC's literary journal The Citadel. This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.
Place: Skylight Books (1818 N. Vermont Ave.)
Date: Friday November 21
Time: 7pm - 8pm
The Citadel - 2026
We will be accepting submissions for the 2026 Citadel in the spring. Please check back in February for our 2026 submission guidelines, which will detail how to submit, what you can submit, and rules for non-LACC submitters.
We will be looking for your best fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. We are not currently accepting screenplays or plays.
Here are our 2025 Submission Guidelines for reference. For more information, please email @email.
Recent Editions
The Citadel 2024
In 2024 we experienced unprecedented advances in technology that ushered in an era dominated by Artificial Intelligence. As we reflected on these changing times, we asked ourselves, how does making art make us human?
The Citadel 2023
Los Angeles is home to many communities, but what does belonging mean when our places of belonging are changing? This year, climate change brought snow to our valleys, hail to our deserts, a tornado to Montebello, and a springtime super-bloom, and it feels like our tempests are just getting started! Let’s affirm our belonging, let’s embrace our century’s existential challenges, and let’s testify!
The Citadel 2022
The collection of voices within LACC’s The Citadel 2022 reflects faculty, established writers, students, and diverse students including English language learners. Though our contributors come from different walks of life, their stories, poetry and artwork speak to the human condition – life’s struggles and triumphs – that we all share. In our 2022 issue, we invite you to explore a most humorous product review, to celebrate a community’s solidarity through a pandemic lockdown in Shanghai, to witness a father’s testimony about unspeakable grief, and to explore our stories of ongoing struggle and continued survival now that we know breathing anew always comes with risks.
Purchase the Citadel's 2022 edition on Amazon
Note: The Citadel was not published in 2021 due to the pandemic.
The Citadel 2020
The Citadel has been published at Los Angeles City College (LACC) since the 1960s and provides a space for students and the community to share their voices. For this issue, the writers and artists, a culmination of LACC students, faculty, and the Los Angeles community-at-large, have provided their voices in a collection of prose, poetry, and art, illustrating the hardships that have been much of 2020. From first-hand experiences of life in quarantine to the emotional frustrations in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd to personal accounts of witnessing Black Lives Matter protests—these voices make up the rich and diverse population that is Los Angeles, and in particular, the students of Los Angeles City College. The Citadel has always been a place for its writers to share experiences that are both different and common to us all, and with this year’s issue, we hope you can find that commonality but still come away with learning about a new human experience.
