Poet Jennifer Karmin is asking for anyone and everyone to collaborate with her on a four thousand word poem to be performed in her hometown of Chicago. Each word represents one of the more than forty-one hundred American soldiers killed in Iraq.

Fiction writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of twenty-five individuals from a variety of professional fields to receive a $500,000 "genius" fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. MacArthur president Jonathan Fanton said the winners received a phone call last week informing them that they would receive the unconditional "no strings attached" support over the next five years. 

The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference announced on Friday its plans to partner with Graywolf Press to publish the winners of the conference's Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize, given annually for first books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

A new Arabic translation initiative is asking Americans to weigh in on what books of poetry and fiction best represent the literature of the United States.

The relatives of poet Federico García Lorca, who was executed by fascists in the early morning hours of August 18, 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, recently agreed to allow authorities to excavate the mass grave, located in a village near Granada, Spain, where he is believed to be buried.

The administrators of the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize announced on Tuesday the six finalists for the international award, including poets and fiction writers from England, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Vietnam.

The National Book Foundation, sponsor of the National Book Awards, recently announced that Maxine Hong Kingston will be honored with the 2008 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

On Saturday, September 27, over sixty southern California poets will come together for a fourteen hour poetry marathon to benefit Avenue 50 Studio, a multicultural gallery and exhibition space in the city's Highland Park district.