George Pelecanos/PsychoPoetica/Sparks/CERN Lexicon

George Pelecanos

The writer of hit TV series The Wire explains why he thinks obscure Californian novelist Don Carpenter, author of Hard Rain Falling, should be considered alongside Norman Mailer and John Steinbeck as one of America's great writers.

PsychoPoetica

As the film Psycho celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, Simon Barraclough and Heather Philipson present their own, poetic versions of Hitchcock's classic ground-breaking film.

Sparks

The Verb's series of mini-radio plays from writers new to radio continues, in collaboration with BBC Radio Drama and BBC writersroom's Sparks iniatiative. This week's plays are Trespass by Frazer Flintham and Jim by Nick Payne. Jeremy Mortimer, head of BBC Radio Drama, reflects on the potential of the form.

CERN Lexicon

As the Large Hadron Collider is switched on following a shutdown two years ago, and experiments to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang begin again, Ariane Koek, a cultural ambassador for CERN, gives The Verb a unique guide to the new language the facility has created.