The North American Scrabble Championship kicks off this weekend in Las Vegas. Last year the winning word was “levirates,” which Merriam-Webster defines as the “sometimes-compulsory marriage of a widow to a brother of her deceased husband.”

Michael Fagan is the one who played that obscure word. He’s the reigning North American Scrabble Champion and he will defend that title starting this weekend. Here & Now‘s Celeste Headlee speaks with Fagan.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.