City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
Award-winning author of “Chlorine” and Pittsburgh native Jade Song returns to City of Asylum for the launch of her sophomore novel, a macabre and deeply original coming-of-age work navigating the meaning of life and the inevitability of death.
Pat Hart and Marc Nieson’s Free Association Reading Series continues this April with four regional writers sharing new and in-progress works.
Pittsburgh’s top ten poets battle it out on the Alphabet City stage, sharing original work to be scored by selected audience members for a chance to win it all!
Anderson Tepper joins bestselling Algerian author Amara Lakhous as he shares his new psychological thriller, brimming with deceit and intrigue of a criminal investigation in postcolonial Algeria.
Six-time Jazz Poetry Month headliner James Brandon Lewis takes to the stage with his punk-jazz fusion band, the Messthetics, and poets Mark Andryczyk, Rania Mamoun, and Volodymyr Rafeyenko to herald in another month of poetry and improvisational jazz collaboration at City of Asylum.
Jazz Poetry 2026 welcomes Marta Sánchez for a stunning solo-piano album release, with compositions inspired by themes of isolation and solitude, as well as intimate, improvisational poetry collaborations with four City of Asylum Writers-in-Residence.
Innately fusion, this concert and book launch debuts poems by Erika Denae J that have leapt off the page and been adapted into musical compositions, brought to life with a 13-piece band including the likes of Jennifer Orchard, John Shannon, Theron Brown, Denzel Chismar-Oliver, James Johnson III, and more.
It's the paperback release of Damon Young's riotous anthology, featuring work by Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, Kiese Laymon, Deesha Philyaw, Roy Wood Jr., Nicola Yoon, and more.
Ed Simon presents 50 short chapters that are asynchronously organized works of flash criticism, meant to draw connections across time periods, which each celebrate an aspect of an expanded and broader “America.”
English PEN Award winner Rodrigo Hasbún and moderator Anderson Tepper dive into the secrets and shrapnel of a 20-year-old friendship ripped apart in Rodrigo’s new novel.
Our On Topic series continues this season with a moderated discussion among free speech experts, who will get into the weeds of current controversies and the role free expression plays in maintaining a democratic government.
From the minds of Andrew Swensen and Yan Pang, City of Asylum hosts an expanded showcase of “Shelter,” the story of scars carried from childhood into adulthood, how pain can distort our perception and damage our relationships, and how we find our strength through it.
