Michael Chabon is in Pittsburgh this weekend campaigning for Barack Obama before the state’s April 22 primary.

Chabon, who earned his master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and set his first novel in the city, will visit bookstores and libraries throughout the city, according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

“I know how important Pennsylvania is going to be,” said Chabon, a member of Obama’s arts policy council. “I’m really committed to the candidacy of Barack Obama and have been for a long time.”

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union on Friday was nominated for a Hugo Award for best novel.

The award is one of two major awards for science fiction. Yiddish has already been nominated for the other sci-fi prize, the Nebula, and is also up for mystery fiction prize the Edgar Award.

The Hugo winners will be announced August 9.

In a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday, Ayelet Waldman explains why it’s not contradictory for women to support Barrack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

“We are lucky this year to have two such remarkable candidates running for president, two candidates who inspire passion — as both Hirshman and my words make clear,” Waldman writes. “What is also clear, however, is that nothing can be gained by making broad generalizations and unwarranted accusations.”

To read the entire column, click here.

The newest issue of The New Yorker contains an essay by Michael Chabon examining superhero costumes.

“Now the time has come to propose, or confront, a fundamental truth: like the being who wears it, the superhero costume is, by definition, an impossible object,” he writes. “It cannot exist.”

To read the entire essay, click here.