Amtrak Opens The Door To Writing On The Rails

Posted: March 14, 2014 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Art & Culture, Mediasphere, Reading Room | Tags: Alexander Chee, Amtrak, Julia Quinn, NPR, PEN American Center, Twitter, United States, Writer |Leave a comment

I heard this in the car the other day, great story.

For NPR, Leah Binokovitz reports: On Twitter, some writers started asking the same question: Wouldn’t it be great if Amtrak offered “residencies” to writers, so they could ride the rails and write? And Amtrak said: Let’s try it.

[Listen to the story: Download]

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: Things can take off fast on Twitter. And that’s what happened when a couple of writers expressed how much they like riding trains, Amtrak specifically. It started with an idea: Wouldn’t it be great if Amtrak would offer writers a chance to ride the rails for free and do some writing along the way? Soon, the idea was being tweeted and retweeted, and Amtrak replied: Sure.

NPR‘s Leah Binkovitz explains.

LEAH BINKOVITZ, BYLINE: Alexander Chee had been thinking about this for a while. He’s a novelist working on his second book. Last year, the literary organization PEN American Center asked him in an interview: What’s your favorite place to write?

ALEXANDER CHEE: I said that I like to write on trains and that I wished Amtrak had residencies for writers.

BINKOVITZ: His comments started a conversation amongst friends and writers on Twitter. The idea seemed to take on a life of its own.

CHEE: I can see all of the people retweeting it and adding their own emphasis and excitement, all caps, exclamation points.

BINKOVITZ: That caught the attention of Julia Quinn. She’s Amtrak’s social media manager.

JULIA QUINN: We, right off the bat, thought it was an interesting idea…Read the rest >>>

..or listen to the audio…

NPR