Partners and Sponsors

City of Asylum’s mission is to create a thriving community for writers, readers, and neighbors. City of Asylum provides sanctuary to endangered literary writers, so that the writers can continue to write and their voices are not silenced, and offers a broad range of literary-based programs in a community setting to encourage cross-cultural exchange. City of Asylum anchors neighborhood economic development by transforming blighted properties into homes for these programs, as well as energizing public spaces through public art with text-based components.

The University of Pittsburgh’s Public and Professional Writing Program fits in this nexus between critical and analytical work, utility, community engagement, and advocacy. Under the umbrella of the Department of English, the PPW program supports students’ professional goals or the public interest (or both), inviting students from across the University to focus on writing as a way to develop the critical writing, learning, and thinking skills necessary to all sectors of American professional life — private, nonprofit, and government.

The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) is an independent organization of cities and regions offering shelter to writers and artists at risk, advancing freedom of expression, defending democratic values and promoting international solidarity. Writers and artists are especially vulnerable to censorship, harassment, imprisonment and even death, because of what they do.