A postwar ad for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

We link on occasion to good travel writing. It can inspire discovery. It can bring novel forms of attention to community, collaboration and conservation. Sometimes writing while traveling is the point. It may sound like merely a romantic notion, but apparently it is also a practical consideration that trains can make for good writing conditions. We ignored this story when it first came up in several of the publications we track as the source of controversy about whether this writer had any ethical dilemmas to wrestle with (the best summary of those issues can be found here).  Now that we read her piece in the Paris Review, we take it at face value:

I am in a little sleeper cabin on a train to Chicago. Framing the window are two plush seats; between them is a small table that you can slide up and out. Its top is a chessboard. Next to one of the chairs is a seat whose top flips up to reveal a toilet, and above that is a “Folding Sink”—something like a Murphy bed with a spigot. There are little cups, little towels, a tiny bar of soap. A sliding door pulls closed and locks with a latch; you can draw the curtains, as I have done, over the two windows pointing out to the corridor. The room is 3’6” by 6’8”. It is efficient and quaint. I am ensconced.

I’m only here for the journey. Soon after I get to Chicago, I’ll board a train and come right back to New York: thirty-nine hours in transit—forty-four, with delays. And I’m here to write: I owe this trip to Alexander Chee, who said in his PEN Ten interview that his favorite place to work was on the train. “I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers,” he said. I did, too, so I tweeted as much, as did a number of other writers; Amtrak got involved and ended up offering me a writers’ residency “test run.” (Disclaimer disclaimed: the trip was free.)

So here I am. Continue reading →