In an interview for PEN.org, published just before Christmas 2013, novelist Alexander Chee made an off-the-cuff remark about the pleasures of writing aboard a train, saying, “I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers.” Chee’s quotable sentiment made the rounds on Twitter, where it was picked up and given a head of steam by freelance writer Jessica Gross (frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and others); she hit up the company directly, asking, “How much momentum do we have to gain for this to become real, @Amtrak?”

The publicly-funded/for-profit railway company’s PR team wisely recognized an opportunity to cash in on social media gold and offered Gross a “test run” for such a writer’s residency – i.e. a free train trip, from New York City to Chicago and back again, aboard an Amtrak sleeper car. Gross wrote about her 44-hour writing retreat on the rails in a nostalgic paean for the romance and literary possibilities of train travel published by The Paris Review in late February. The railway company followed through on the idea soon after, and officially announced the launch of an Amtrak Residency for Writers mere days after her essay was published. The response since has been huge – lots of glowing media coverage of the new program, countless tweets and wishful status updates; more than 8,000 eager writers have already submitted applications for #Amtrakresidency.

At the same time, a number of writers have started to publicly question details in the fine print of the official terms of Amtrak’s writer’s residency application. A couple of clauses, in particular, have proven particularly nettlesome: these include a requirement that all applicants grant Amtrak sweeping – irrevocable, complete and worldwide – rights to the full content of their application materials (including the requisite writing sample), and that said applications’ written materials must conform to a number of “content guidelines.”

Photo courtesy of Altiplano Railtours

Unsatisfied with Amtrak’s residency but still enamored of the general idea, a handful of Minneapolis-St. Paul artists have decided to take matters into their own hands. The arts collaborative Red 76 is working to establish Trainwreck, an independently-run “mobile residency for writers by writers, no strings attached.” The idea started modestly enough – a Kickstarter campaign to fund writers’ train trips between St. Paul’s Union Depot and Chicago and to cover the publication costs of a related book. But according to a March 30 update by Red76, thanks to an offer of assistance by a charter rail company, Altiplano Railtours, the endeavor has now expanded substantially, including the possibility for writers to travel by vintage sleeper trains between more cities across the country; Red76 may now also be able to offer interdisciplinary “mobile symposia” and the “chance to travel with a small cohort of writers while simultaneously being afforded private space to think and write.”

Red76’s basic pitch for the Trainwreck writer’s residency:

*Updated 3/31/14: The original text incorrectly noted the deadline as March 31, 2014.