The City of Pittsburgh—ranked "America's Most Livable City" several times—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. It's also been called "the perfect city for writers."
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 Acrisure Stadium (home to Pitt Football!) 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 and literary resources:
- Collision - a student-run publication housed under the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh
- Creative Nonfiction - inspiration and support for writers of true stories
- The New Yinzer - unique Pittsburgh-themed collections by local writers and artists
- The Original - a biannual arts and culture magazine made by University of Pittsburgh students
- Confluence - Pittsburgh’s longest-running literary conference
- Speakeasy - the reading series of the University of Pittsburgh's Creative Writing MFA program
- Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series - a free and public series that brings notable writers to Pitt's main campus every year
- Autumn House Press - a nonprofit, literary publisher based in Pittsburgh
- Cave Canem - a landscape committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets
- City of Asylum Pittsburgh - builds a just community by protecting and celebrating freedom of creative expression
- Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures - connects celebrated authors with the community to grow passion for the literary arts
- Pittsburgh Speakers Series - an elite speaking schedule with a virtual “who’s who” of national and global figures