Chuck Kinder, the wizened guru of the University of Pittsburgh's writing program, is fond of calling Pittsburgh "the Paris of Appalachia" for its enormous wealth of writing talent.

From Pulitzer Prize winners David McCullough and Annie Dillard through newer, younger writers such as Philip Beard and Lori Jakiela, there's an incredible number of talented writers who call or have called Pittsburgh home.

It's hard to generalize about local writing characteristics, says Jim Daniels, a poet and writer who heads the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University.

"One thing I've noticed is that most of the writers here in town tend to write work that is accessible," he says. "There's a kind of hard-earned clarity that I find pretty consistently across the board."

Perhaps Beard and Jakiela best exemplify this readability. Within the last year, both have published their first books. Beard's "Dear Zoe," named one the Ten Best First Novels of 2005 by the American Library Association, was a surprising debut for the Aspinwall resident, a lawyer who took a hiatus from his practice to write a coming-of-age novel.

"For me, writing almost always starts with family -- both its permanence and its frailty," Beard says. "I can't help but think that being a lifelong Pittsburgh resident has influenced that tendency."

Jakiela's just-published debut, a nonfiction work called "Miss New York Has Everything," affirms Beard's contention. Her memoir about growing up in the sleepy town of Trafford, which sits astride the border of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, recounts how she wanted to escape the area but then found everything she wanted in Western Pennsylvania.

When a friend from out of town visited recently, he remarked on the grittiness of areas such as Homestead and Braddock.

"I think that's true," Jakiela says. "So we're gritty. We're tough. And full of a kind of innocent, immigrant heart. And I think a lot of Pittsburgh writers' work reflects that. I think place -- this city, this landscape -- is so important, too."

Jane McCafferty, a professor of writing at Carnegie Mellon and the author of the short story collection "Thank You for the Music," agrees that geography plays a role in forming local writers.

"I think we're bonded by years under these gray skies in a city of bridges," she says. "I think this imbues our work -- a sense of being huddled in what's neither the East or the Midwest, but a place all its own."

McCafferty points out that being a writer in a sports-driven town also fosters humility. In New York, San Francisco and other literary spots, writers are often celebrities. Not so in Pittsburgh.

"What really seems to matter in this town?" McCafferty asks. "The Steelers! It's hard to forget that."

And so Pittsburgh writers go to work like the steel and iron workers of the past. This is reflected, Jakiela thinks, in the stories they produce that often are about everyday struggles.

"I think many of the characters, speakers and narrators who show up in Pittsburgh writers' books are very grounded in this world," she says. "They have jobs, they pay bills. They get stuck in traffic. They buy duct tape. And there's this heartbreaking tenderness, too, underneath it all."

Beard says that while Pittsburgh isn't a magnet for writers, natives often return to the region after sojourns in other locales.

"While the grass might be 'greener' in L.A. or Phoenix or Charlotte, it doesn't grow nearly as well, and no one seems to stop on the sidewalk to chat and provide a welcome distraction while you're cutting it either," he says.

"Certainly, Pittsburgh families aren't insulated from tragedy, of either the random or self-inflicted variety, but we do seem to hang in there longer than most. We are survivors, and survivors are great material."