Tom Hanks Pens Fiction Piece for The New Yorker

The New Yorker has enlisted another Hollywood all-star.

Oscar nominee Tom Hanks is the latest actor to write for the publication, turning out ALAN BEAN PLUS FOUR, a piece of short fiction that follows a group of four astronauts who travel to the moon in a homemade spaceship.

The story begins:

"Travelling to the moon was way less complicated this year than it was back in 1969, as the four of us proved, not that anyone gives a whoop. You see, over cold beers on my patio, with the crescent moon a delicate princess fingernail low in the west, I told Steve Wong that if he threw, say, a hammer with enough muscle, said tool would make a five-hundred-thousand-mile figure eight, sail around that very moon, and return to Earth like a boomerang, and wasn't that fascinating?"

Click here to read Hanks' piece. You can also click here to hear to him read the piece.

The actor's upcoming big screen projects include A Hologram for the King and The Lost Symbol. He recently starred in Saving Mr. Banks, Captain Phillips, Cloud Atlas, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Toy Story 3. He won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his roles in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. Hanks made his Broadway debut last year in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy.