Palo Alto-born actor James Franco is set to star as Allen Ginsberg in a new film that will focus on the landmark Howl obscenity trial. Which makes sense, since Franco studied literature at UCLA and this month reportedly starts grad school at NYU. He seems to be making a habit of appearing in lit-centric films about the Bay Area, having already portrayed Sean Penn’s lover in the upcoming biography of Harvey Milk. Any guesses on his next San Francisco lit-film role? Ambrose Bierce? Ken Kesey? A drag version of Danielle Steel?

Litquake is proud to announce a new partner this year, the audio spoken-word company dublit, run by John Yi and a dedicated crew (which happen to share space in our office building, no less). Dublit will be recording many Litquake events this year, so check out their site after the festival for some killer audio clips. Already archived on their site are dozens of readings from local lit groups, as well as Litquake regulars like Alan Black, Beth Lisick, and Laura Fraser.

And finally, here’s a clever little site/online application that generates “word clouds” from pieces of text. Click around and see how much time you can waste!