All aboard.

September 24, 2014 8:43 AM

Meet the 24 writers chosen for the Amtrak Residency program (previously!).

The writers were chosen by these judges from more than 16,000 applications.

posted by roomthreeseventeen (42 comments total)

I was tempted to apply for this, but then heard that Amtrak would retain ownership of anything you wrote while on the residency - whether they used it or not.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wow, this list of accomplished people (Marco Werman. Saul Williams??) proves that this residency program was always way out of my league.
posted by Think_Long at 8:49 AM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

I take Amtrak a lot and am hoping to run into one of them.
posted by JanetLand at 8:59 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

The page is not loading for me, so for anyone who is missing out I'll fill in the details from my imagination. The judges were Thomas the Train, the steam shovel from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Mike Mulligan's widow, and Harvey Keitel. The selected writers include Charlie Kaufman, Noam Chomsky, a guy from BuzzFeed, and one of Oregon's top twenty Yelp Reviewers. Their first project is going to be a self-published Xeroxed novella called Horse Tracks; it is about a rail-riding junkie named Sparks Streetwise. When Sparks falls in love with a wealthy super-starlet, he is upgraded from boxcar to sleeper car — "sparking," if you will, a deep introspection on power, values, and class struggle in 21st Century America. The in-progress novella is already generating huge excitement. "I'm on the edge of my own seats," said senior judge Thomas the Train.
posted by compartment at 8:59 AM on September 24, 2014 [29 favorites]

I was tempted to apply for this, but then heard that Amtrak would retain ownership of anything you wrote while on the residency - whether they used it or not.

As far as I know, that's not true. There was a controversy originally when the application form went up but that was different. According to the terms, by submitting the application (including writing samples), the applicant was granting Amtrak non-exclusive irrevocable publishing rights to all of the application content. That's different than Amtrak owning the writing samples themselves, the author would still retain the right to publish the submitted work themselves, or make derivative works based on the submitted work. It's still problematic in terms of granting more rights than Amtrak really needs, Amtrak would theoretically have the right to publish the works in some sort of standalone anthology without the consent of the authors even though they are not intending to do that. But I have never heard of Amtrak retaining ownership of any of the work written during the residency, in fact Amtrak said they would have no rights whatsoever to that work.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:04 AM on September 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

Well compartment, apart from the judges not actually being fictional characters, you seem to have pretty well nailed it.
posted by Naberius at 9:07 AM on September 24, 2014

The judges were Thomas the Train, the steam shovel from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Mike Mulligan's widow, and Harvey Keitel.

Apparently, Irvine Welsh and The Little Engine Who Could were unavailable.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Some of the people chosen are surprising (Bill Willingham?) but this is pretty cool nonetheless!
posted by Kitteh at 9:09 AM on September 24, 2014

This is really cool. I love seeing rail transportation romanticized in this way because the mode totally deserves it!

Though I wish our inter-city rail system was less broken. I recently missed a night bus from New York City to Boston; I saw that there was an Amtrak train leaving in only half an hour, so out of general fatigue I sucked it up and bought a ticket home for over three times the price of even a last-minute bus fare. Ten minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, there was an announcement that whoops, there would be a delay, as the train was being held outside WILMINGTON DELAWARE. Hey, I went to grad school for transportation planning, I know there are a million regulatory, policy, and otherwise institutional roadblocks preventing Amtrak's success. But damn, I just don't have the time or the money to pay a markedly higher price to get somewhere markedly slower.
posted by threeants at 9:10 AM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

compartment: "I'm on the edge of my own seats," said senior judge Thomas the Train.

His remarks were nearly drowned out by the Troublesome Trucks chanting "Their writing sucks! Their writing sucks!".
posted by dr_dank at 9:12 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

(Reader, I propped myself up in various all-night diners and got on a morning bus.)
posted by threeants at 9:13 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

So many of those chosen seem like the sort of insufferable self promoting twat that shouldn't be let within a 1,000 miles of something cool like this, and Bill Willingham.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:18 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I really wish Harper's articles weren't stuck behind a paywall because they did an article about rail transport in the US (the history of and its current woes) back in the June issue and it was incredibly good.
posted by Kitteh at 9:18 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I applied for this; I didn't realize that you'd probably only get chosen if you were already a successful and well-established writer. Ah well; Amtrak playing safe and can't blame them too much for that. I hope the writing that comes out of this is good.
posted by Wordshore at 9:19 AM on September 24, 2014

Apparently, Irvine Welsh and The Little Engine Who Could were unavailable.

Yeah, she's now called The Little Engine Who Could, but Only Next Year After She Gets Through the Final Editing of Her Next Novel, Thanks.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:24 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I applied and got a 20% discount coupon with the rejection letter. Can't complain! (Didn't cash it in before it expired, though.)
posted by archagon at 9:27 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

VIA rail in Canada apparently has a resident knitter program, where part of the job is to teach passengers to knit on the Canadian long-haul route (Toronto<>Vancouver). My wife was very disappointed when we just couldn't arrange our lives to make her doing that possible.
posted by Emanuel at 9:28 AM on September 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

They also have a resident musician program. We had a beardy indie folk singer perform for the cafe car during the Vancouver—Toronto trip.
posted by archagon at 9:40 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well, Glen Weldon doesn't look like I thought he would.
posted by Etrigan at 9:41 AM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

a resident knitter program

A-whooee-ah-whooee
Old clickety-clack's a-echoing back
The blues in the night.
posted by yoink at 9:44 AM on September 24, 2014

The judges were Thomas the Train, the steam shovel from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Mike Mulligan's widow, and Harvey Keitel.

She has a name! It's Mary Anne.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:48 AM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

VIA rail in Canada apparently has a resident knitter program, where part of the job is to teach passengers to knit on the Canadian long-haul route (Toronto<>Vancouver).

That is the most Canadian thing I have ever heard.
posted by Aizkolari at 9:57 AM on September 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Scrolling down the list it's obvious they backloaded with white dudes, but nevertheless, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at the diversity. Short on Latinos, perhaps.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:12 AM on September 24, 2014

Other people glued to devices or a book....

The view out the window (unless you are fortunate to find a seat in a dome car)....

Old porters in white uniforms serving $$$$ food in a pretentious setting....

It will be interesting to see the twists and takes on that, as that's about all there is on Amtrak.

Seems a bit disingenuous to call this a "residency" program when all that (appears) to be offered is a free ticket from A to B.

Call me jaded, but I've been across country on Amtrak, all over Europe, ridden the Orient Express (yes, London to Ankara), and hitch-hiked, driven, motorcycled, and flown many places.

Next to enduring the cramped tube that is air flight, trains come in second place for the "there's no there, there" award....
posted by CrowGoat at 10:16 AM on September 24, 2014

i might have applied if i had known about this in time. i might have had to overcome a bad reference; years ago, i hopped charlie the choo-choo, and when i called him about this today, he said they want their writers to use more capital letters.
posted by bruce at 10:19 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm wondering if amtrak will allow any of them to use the decline of amtrak and rail travel in general as a metaphor for the fall of the 20th century's last remaining superpower.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:21 AM on September 24, 2014

The judges were Thomas the Train, the steam shovel from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Mike Mulligan's widow, and Harvey Keitel.

She has a name! It's Mary Anne.

It is very important to me that someone pointed this out, and I should also mention that I don't think Mike Mulligan is married and he DEFINITELY does not have a widow as he is NOT DEAD. Right now it's headed towards winter so he is having a pleasant chat with Mary Anne as they get ready for their busy season when he will sit next to her and smoke a comfortable pipe while townspeople come to have a chat in Mary Anne's basement where it is nice and cozy and pleasant no matter how cold it gets outside.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:29 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Scrolling down the list it's obvious they backloaded with white dudes

The order's alphabetical by last name.
posted by irrelephant at 10:33 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

If one of the writers is a murderer, but no one knows who it is, and they're all live-blogging about it whilst stuck on the train getting bumped off one by one, I say WELL PLAYED SIR.

Otherwise, OPPORTUNITY MISSED.
posted by Ned G at 10:34 AM on September 24, 2014 [9 favorites]

VIA rail in Canada apparently has a resident knitter program

This is definitely a thing, and it's how I learned how to crochet. We met in one of the lounge cars for a couple hours every afternoon. Our instructor owned a knit shop in Victoria, and occasionally taught on VIA Rail in exchange for free/reduced-price tickets. For her, it wasn't so much a residency in the sense of an extended duration as it was an occasional thing (an adjunct knitter, perhaps).

I got the impression that VIA Rail has an activities coordinator, who arranges instructors & performers from various disciplines to be available to passengers.
posted by Banknote of the year at 10:35 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

... I've been across country on Amtrak, all over Europe, ridden the Orient Express (yes, London to Ankara), and hitch-hiked, driven, motorcycled, and flown many places.

Well, Johnny Cash had been everywhere, too, and he still had a thing about trains.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:51 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

My great-great-granddaddy was caricaturist-in-residence for the Bloomfield Transnational Stagecoach Concern in the 1860s. Unfortunately the trails were so rough everyone came out looking like this.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:07 AM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Everyone's of course entitled to their own opinion, but -- with the possible exception of flying General Aviation, which is something that is Powerball-levels of unlikely away from being something I'll ever get the chance to become accustomed to -- I have yet to find a more civilized way to haul my carcass around the country than Amtrak. Which is damning with faint praise given the alternatives, I suppose, but there it is.

the decline of amtrak

That would be a difficult premise to work from, since Amtrak started off as a Nixonian scheme to kill passenger rail and was never expected to survive more than a few years. It has, to put it mildly, exceeded expectations.

That we have allowed our expectations to sink to such low levels is the real scandal, and could perhaps be indicative of a certain decline in our national outlook, if you were inclined to draw parallels.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:09 AM on September 24, 2014

I just took the City Of New Orleans last Sunday, and it was great. Several times during the trip, I said, "Forget high speed rail. Let's just invest in making regular rail hyper-efficient and make the trains run on time." We had a 45 minute delay on our trip due to a broken down freight train on the tracks ahead of us, which was not Amtrak's fault. I have had much longer delays on both the highway and air travel.
posted by vibrotronica at 11:15 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is the setup to a grisly murder mystery, right?
posted by stoneandstar at 11:19 AM on September 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

but nevertheless, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at the diversity.

Funny, but the thing that struck me the most when I was scrolling through was the lack of diversity, aside from gender. Granted, I'm making assumptions based on each writer's physical appearance and name, since I'm not familiar with most of them, but as far as I can tell, it seems like out of 24 writers, there is only one woman of color and two men of color. I see nobody who appears to be Hispanic, Asian, Native American, etc. And other than Lisa Schwarzbaum, there don't appear to be any writers who are not "young" (that is, over 50).

That said, I'd never presume to superimpose my choices on the esteemed Mr. Mulligan.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 11:37 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was a stealth residency writer one summer. The only thing I got out of it was the knowledge that a lot of ink can be spilled on Beat Generation inspired navel gazing. It is, however, the best way to travel provided you're of the "journey, not the destination" type.
posted by Fezboy! at 12:10 PM on September 24, 2014

I took the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland, Oregon this summer. It was beautiful and interesting. I saw many cool animals and meet a lot of interesting people, especially men heading to or from the North Dakotan oil fields who were suddenly fantastically wealthy. I spent an evening in the observation car with a few people singing and playing guitar and chatting. It was awesome and full of literary fodder.

But the train was 10 hours late because oil trains have priority on much of the track, and Amtrak doesn't have the political backing to do anything about it. Maybe this will help raise their profile? I hope so -delays like that are having serious consequences for people who rely on Amtrak to get back and forth home and to work.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:16 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Wow, this list of accomplished people (Marco Werman. Saul Williams??) proves that this residency program was always way out of my league.

You pointed out the same two that struck me as odd. I'm not sure why, buy prior to this announcement, I had thought this was going to be a thing for amateur writers, not folks with fancy credits.
posted by GrapeApiary at 1:32 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

But the train was 10 hours late because oil trains have priority on much of the track, and Amtrak doesn't have the political backing to do anything about it. Maybe this will help raise their profile?

I don't know if writers are the people you'd turn to to champion the virtues of finishing on time.
posted by yoink at 1:34 PM on September 24, 2014 [6 favorites]

I applied and got a 20% discount coupon with the rejection letter. Can't complain! (Didn't cash it in before it expired, though.)

My rejection discount was only 15%! And I just used it to go from L.A. to NYC (Southwest Chief to Chicago, Lake Shore Limited the rest of the way). Nice trip, but we were five hours late coming in to Penn Station. Also, next time I want the aisle seat, even though the view is better from the window seat. Being able to get up and walk around with ease is what train travel is all about.
posted by mirepoix at 7:56 PM on September 24, 2014

Oh, well maybe it was 15%. Some number or other.
posted by archagon at 4:53 AM on September 25, 2014