Cambridge hosted the biggest National Poetry Slam in history last year, but it’s expected to be even bigger next year as it makes a surprise return and adds Somerville venues to handle overflow crowds.

The Cantab Lounge’s dimly lit basement gets packed for its Wednesday poetry slam, with a line extending up the stairs and down the block for several yards. One reason: A welcoming approach to even first-time readers as young as 18.

With a presidential election behind them, Cambridge residents can turn their attention to nominations for another important office: poet populist, the person expected to celebrate the creation and appreciation of poetry throughout the city for two years starting in June.

Murder mystery “The Bone Bed” has taken up residency on The New York Times’ best-seller list, but fictional hero Dr. Kay Scarpetta is staying a resident of Cambridge — and the involvement of author Patricia Cornwell isn’t over either.

This is not your typical reading. True, author Kent Evans will be on hand Monday at Central Square’s Cafe Luna with signed copies of his novel, but he is coming with a full band, and the band will be playing Evans’ own fusion of rock, trip-hop and jazz behind him.

With a new editor comes an eye-catching change in the look of Spare Change News, and a significant restating of goals, including hints at a major fundraising campaign and staff-writer structure at a paper that has been volunteer-run for two decades.

Readers of young adult fiction gets a double-feature Monday as two authors arrive in a unique, end-of-summer road trip inspired by their dual debut novels … about road trips.

A friend and family to the creative finds himself lucky to live in Huron Village — right across from Formaggio Kitchen and its salted oat cookies.

The Dire Reader literary series has a summer feel Friday. It’s been transformed for the day into the The Dire Literary BBQ, with food and music added to the usual readings by up and comers in the literary scene.

It’s not just singer-songwriters and folkies enthusing about “Revival,” the novel by Boston Globe columnist Scott Alarik set in the roots music world in general and Cambridge specifically. The book also too home a Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Popular Fiction last month.