Amtrak announces its writers' residency participants
Amtrak has announced the 24 writers that will be participating in the company鈥檚 writers鈥� residency program.
As we reported earlier this year, writer Alexander Chee brought up during an interview the idea of a residency for writers by Amtrak because he said one of his favorite places to work was on a train. Writers Jessica Gross and Zach Seward tweeted a link of the story to Amtrak鈥檚 account and the company wrote back, saying, 鈥淲e鈥檇 need a test run. You two up for a trip to Chicago and back?鈥澛�
Now Amtrak has announced other participants.
鈥淥ver the next year, they will work on writing projects of their choice in the unique workspace of a long-distance train,鈥� the Amtrak reads. 鈥淭he 24 residents offer a diverse representation of the writing community and hail from across the country.鈥�
Those who will be taking the journeys include Gothamist deputy editor Jen Carlson, SETT co-founder Tynan, author Ksenia Anske, author Karen Karbo, sports blogger Craig Calcaterra, and movie critic Lisa Schwarzbaum.
According to Amtrak鈥檚 site, they received more than 16,000 applications for the residencies. Chee, Amtrak vice president of government affairs Joe McHugh, Random House editor Samuel Nicholson, and National Endowment for the Arts director of literature Amy Stolls judged the entries.
The further detailed the company鈥檚 vision for the program.
鈥淲hat started as a casual mention in an interview聽and a聽tweet聽from a聽freelancer writer back in December, has turned into a program that Amtrak is truly honored to be a part of,鈥� the blog reads. 鈥淲e are excited for the聽24 residents聽to experience the beauty of long-distance train travel and hopefully find inspiration for their writing along the way.鈥澛�
Readers, if the program continued, would you apply to get some writing done on a trip across the country?
