The U.S. Writers World Cup soccer team is made up of American novelists, playwrights, poets, and writers of nonfiction. Founded in 2009, it is part of the Writers World Cup league, an initiative organized by the Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco and the former publisher Paolo Verri in 2005. Italy hosted the first Writers’ League tournament in San Casciano dei Bagni, with England, Hungary, Italy, and Sweden taking part. The 2006 tournament in Florence saw the first appearance of the England Writers World Cup team. Since then, several other nations, including Germany, Holland, Norway, and Israel, have joined.
Writers currently part of the U.S. squad include Sebastian Abbot, Daniel Alarcón, Michael Byers, Jonny Diamond, Aleksandar Hemon, Peter Ho Davies, Sasha Issenberg, Peter Orner, Tom Vanderbilt, and Matt Weiland. The U.S. Writers World Cup team welcomes queries from potential new recruits.