CITY OF ASYLUM BOOKSTORE | PHOTO BY SEAN COLLIER

Why do we write stories? If you’re curious to know more, the City of Asylum Literature Festival is the perfect place for you to be this weekend.

City of Asylum’s LitFest celebrates literature with world-renowned authors, translators and musicians — all free to the public on Sept. 28-29. The sessions are available in person (although some are already at capacity) and virtually.

City of Asylum on the North Side is a sanctuary for exiled writers. Over the past two decades, founders, Diane Samuels and her husband, Henry Reese, have given refuge to more than 18 voices from around the world as well as short-term writers and artists. They founded the organization 20 years ago, inspired by a lecture by Salman Rushdie, who is one of their favorite authors.

The first event will be “Writing Our Own Story: The Art of Memoir,” at 1 p.m. on Sept. 28. Three authors will share their experiences about memoir writing. Abdelrahman ElGendy, an Egyptian writer, is writing a memoir about his six years as a political prisoner in Egypt. Francine Prose is a fiction writer and literary critic whose first memoir, “1974”, was published in June 2024. Pittsburgh-based writer Damon Young is a writer, satirist and current creator of the Crooked Media podcast “Stuck With Damon Young.”

The next event at 3 p.m. is “The Evolution of True Crime Literary Fiction.” This event will feature Nicola Lagioia, who will discuss his latest novel, “The City of Living,” which is about the most vicious and gripping crimes in recent Italian history.

You’ve heard of slam poetry, but have you ever heard of Translation Slam Poetry? This is at 6 p.m. on Sept. 28. A translation slam is a head-to-head competition between two translators to see who can produce the better translation of the same source material. Several scholars will be competing: Ann Goldstein, Michael Moore, Nicola Lagioia, Rania Mamoun, Mayada Ibrahim and Amani Attia.

It’s time to jazz things up and move into the next event, which is called “Transylvanian Folk Songs Meet Jazz Poetry.” at 8 p.m. Sept. 28. Renowned musicians Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri perform tracks from their latest record, “Transylvanian Dance.” Included in this will be an improvisational collaboration with Pittsburgh poet Joy Priest and two poets from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Do you want to learn more about drag queens? City of Asylum will hold an event at noon on Sept. 29 called “Drag Queen Story Time.” This is an educational program during which hosts dress up as drag queens to help kids and adults learn about these professionals through games, songs and puzzles. This program will be led by local drag queen legend, Miss Akasha L Van-Cartier, who has been performing for 25 years.

Among other events on Sept. 29 are “Black Poetry in Appalachia,”  with Frank X Walker at 2 p.m., “Music and Activism” featuring Benjamin Barson at 4 p.m., and a talk with New York Times Best-selling novelist Richard Powers at 6 p.m. He is the author of 14 books, including “The Overstory and Bewilderment” and his latest, “Playground.”