Our City

The City of Pittsburgh–ranked "America's Most Livable City" by Places Rated Almanac in 2007–is a hub of top-notch cultural, educational, and medical institutions situated at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. The second largest city in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh has shed its soot-covered, "Steel City" stereotype through a major cultural renaissance, emerging as a decidedly modern city with nearly 90 exciting and diverse neighborhoods. The city is thriving like never before.

In Pittsburgh, there's a reading almost any night of the week. And the Writing Program benefits from our linkage to City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. Exiled writers-in-residence (such as China’s Huang Xiang and El Salvador's Horacio Castellanos Moya) regularly teach writing and literature courses here at Pitt.

From professional sports stadiums PNC Park and Heinz Field on the North Shore, to Lawrenceville's New York Times-reviewed Butler Street, Pittsburgh offers much to visitors and residents alike. The University of Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood embraces the city's atmosphere of arts and culture, with the Carnegie Library's main branch, and the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History only a short walk from the famed Cathedral of Learning.

For more information on where to live, eat, and play in Pittsburgh, visit Cool Pittsburgh, a comprehensive collection of everything you'd ever want to know about Pittsburgh. You can also read the New York Times Travel article “36 Hours in Pittsburgh” to get an outsider's take on how “livable” Pittsburgh truly is.

Our city is home to these Publications

• Collision
• Creative Nonfiction
• The New Yinzer
• The Original

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Our city is home to these Readings Series

University of Pittsburgh

• American Experience Lecture Series
• Confluence
• The MFA Readings at Fuel & Fuddle
• Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series

Pittsburgh

• American Shorts Reading Series
• Autumn House Master Authors Series
• Cave Canem
• Choice Cuts Slaughterhouse Reading Series
• City of Asylum Pittsburgh
• Drue Heinz Lecture Series
• Gist Street Reading Series
• Human Nature open mic night at Shadow Lounge
• Hungry Sphinx Reading Series at Sphinx Café 
• Liquid Sundays
• Melanie Brown Lecturer Series
• Paper Street Press Summer Readings at Coffee Den
• Pittsburgh Speakers Series
• Poetry Caravan Series at Your Inner Vagabond
• She Said: Women's Words (Pittsburgh Cultural Trust)
• Sunday Poetry and Reading Series
• Te Café Reading Series
• The New Yinzer Presents
• UPWords at the Union Project