City of Asylum Pittsburgh builds a just community by protecting and celebrating freedom of creative expression. We provide sanctuary to endangered literary writers and artists, so that they can continue to create and their voices are not silenced.
We offer a broad range of free literary, arts, and humanities programs in a community setting to build social equity through cultural exchange. And by transforming dilapidated properties into homes for our programs, we anchor neighborhood economic development.
City of Asylum was founded in 2004 and is the largest writer sanctuary in the world. Located in Pittsburgh, PA, we are the U.S. headquarters of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), and do important work locally, nationally, and globally. We present over 150 free arts and humanities programs annually in Pittsburgh. Our international peers now deem us “the model for what a City of Asylum can be...expanding the idea of what is possible.”
Our neighbors credit us with breaking down barriers of race, gender, and class in our community.