Reading

Reading and discussion with 2020 Drue Heinz Winner, Joanna Pearson. Joanna will read from her award-winning collection You Know it All and be joined in conversation by Clare Beams (The Illness Lesson).

Hanne Ørstavik is best known to the English-speaking audience for her novel "Love", a 2019 finalist for the National Book Award in Translated Literature and winner of the PEN Translation Prize. Hanne joins us live from her home in Norway (at 11pm at night) to discuss her most recent English translated novel "The Pastor," also joining the conversation is translator Martin Aitken, whose translation of this extraordinary novel rings with the brilliance and rigor of a master.

An in-person reading and conversation with author and Wall Street Journal reporter Kris Maher. 

Damon Galgut joins us live from his home in Pretoria, South Africa to read and discuss his new novel The Promise, winner of the 2021 Man Booker Prize. 

Brittany Thurman writes stories for middle grade readers that soar with warmth and imagination. Brittany joins us live, virtually, to celebrate the launch of her new picture book Fly, released in January 2022. 

Journeys From There to Here is a stirring set of essays from leading immigration lawyer Susan Cohen, inviting us to walk alongside her clients as they share incredible journeys coming to America while overcoming unimaginable dangers and often heartbreaking obstacles.

Join City of Asylum and Story Club Pgh for a new monthly nonfiction storytelling series, mixing the spontaneity of an open mic with the experience of live theater. With featured performers and open mic storytellers. February's theme: For the love of the game 

Jonathan Gottschall joins us live at Alphabet City to share the science behind storytelling and his quest to ask “How can we save the world from stories?” 

In her early career, Emily Maloney worked as an emergency room technician: a job undertaken to pay off the crippling medical debt brought about by years spent in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices while grappling with life-changing depression.  Doing the grunt work in a hospital, and taking care of patients at their most vulnerable moments, Emily chronicles her interactions and offers  a brilliant examination of just what exactly our troubled healthcare system asks us to pay.

Award winning writers Patrick Rosal and David Wright Faladé join us in virtual conversation to celebrate the launch of their new works, Faladé’s novel Black Cloud Rising and Rosal’s poetry collection The Last Thing.

Cole Arthur Riley is a Pittsburgh raised writer and creator of Black Liturgies (@blackliturgies), daily spiritual reflections on Instagram. Cole joins City of Asylum to read from her debut collection, This Here Flesh, which weaves stories from three generations of her family to discover the “necessary rituals” that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation.

This is a virtual-only event hosted via City of Asylum @ Home. A poetic and raw coming-of-age memoir about Blackness, masculinity, and addiction, Punch Me Up to the Gods is... more →