Harper Perennial announced last Wednesday that it will offer a free short story every week throughout 2009. Each Sunday night the HarperCollins imprint will post a new short story on the blog Fifty-Two Stories. Eight stories, including "Wish Fulfillment" by Mary Gaitskill, "Burn Me Up" by Tom Piazza, and "Beauty Stolen From Another World" by Louise Erdrich, have already been published.

The independent production company Werc Werk Works announced last Thursday that it has signed on to finance a feature film about the creation of and controversy surrounding Allen Ginsberg’s long poem "Howl."

A petition drafted by PEN American Center calling for the release of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested by Chinese authorities on December 8, has received over a thousand signatures, and the organization is continuing to seek supporters.

The New Yorker on Tuesday announced the creation of a book club, or, as the editors prefer to think of it, a "readers’ cooperative—a standing invitation to roll up your sleeves and dig deep into a book, and see what together we uncover."

A sampling of budget itineraries for do-it-yourself retreats in Boston, Massachusetts; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Savannah, Georgia; and Taos, New Mexico.

Another literary casualty of the ailing market, the International Poetry Forum (IPF) in Pittsburgh will cease its poetry programming after this season.

Margaret Atwood has cancelled her plans to attend the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL) in Dubai after learning that British author Geraldine Bedell was told by organizers that she could not be a part of the event because one of the characters in her forthcoming novel, The Gulf Between Us, is gay.

Isobel Abulhoul, director of the new Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL), recently informed British novelist Geraldine Bedell that she could not be a part of the event because one of the characters in her forthcoming novel is gay.