This piece highlights the merger between City of Asylum and Iowa University’s International Writers Program. This video discussion highlights how governments react to creative poetry and creative writing in their countries.
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This past week City of Asylum/Pittsburgh founder Henry Reese attended, as an observer, the fifth General Assembly of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) in Frankfurt, Germany. ICORN is an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to preserving freedom of expression where it is endangered. The ICORN General Assembly provides an update on organizations and projects featuring international freedom of expression.
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This photo captures a few Haitian school children smiling and laughing outside of their school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Shot 30 years ago, this photo helps illustrate the lives of the Haitian people before the devastating earthquake that rocked the nation. Life in Haiti has never been easy, but with the addition of this catastrophe the already fragile nation has a lot of work to do.
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This week we’ll take a look at 408 Sampsonia Way, known as House Poem. Painted by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s first writer in residence Huang Xiang, this house features an anthology of his poetry helping to illustrate how Xiang has the right to write freely in the United States.
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In detective stories there’s no birds sing. Joy is forbidden, temptation the sign of the devil, illicit, enthralling, a siren not a song. Joy is the accomplice of crime. Solving a crime, no matter how chaotic […]
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As a Chinese citizen, I cannot publish in China. But I can freely “promote Chinese culture” in the U.S., engage in cultural exchanges, and speak from the lectern at American universities I am deeply impressed by […]
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One Saturday morning while I am walking around my new Pittsburgh neighborhood, I buy a human-sized mirror for a dollar at a yard sale. My sons buy toys and a dinosaur—only 50 cents for each! Walking […]
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