My responses to the #AmtrakResidency program's application questions — limited to 1,000 characters each (including spaces).
"Why do you want an #AmtrakResidency?"I always wanted to know the world through every vein, heartbeat, and breath. A small town was never enough, and I craved to not only see and understand every facet of this world, but to live it as well.That is why storytelling has always appealed to me in an aching sort of way. As a child, I escaped into the world of storytelling to suppress my own reality. Reading meant being in a world that was not my own, and I traveled as often as possible.Writing has since become a compliment to my reality, rather than a substitute — and my love of words has only increased, knowing how they saved me in my youth. To write is to explore the infinite nature of potentiality. That thought comforts me, in my uncertainty about the future.The opportunity of an Amtrak Residency would provide a fluid environment for my creativity to evolve. I have seen far too little of my own country, and to be surrounded by its openness, traveling through the veins of America, would allow me to explore my own voice.
"How would this residency benefit your writing?"
I have heard from countless writers — emerging, established, living and dead — regarding the importance of simply letting go and writing. While every writer has their own technique, I found this meant channeling your authorial voice, writing down every last syllable, all without editing a single punctuation mark. This bears an uncanny similarity to this idea of traveling while writing — writing in motion, circulating through a landscape as a smaller part of the whole.But the reality of a post-graduate in a creative field is one of immense pressure, and often, this feeling of constant motion is smothered by an overwhelming sense of stagnancy. I find that what I have accomplished is rarely as important as what I will accomplish. This worry is a constant presence, even in a quiet room. The opportunity of an Amtrak Residency will allow me to embrace writing, in constant motion — a most welcome reprieve from all the expectant friendly fire at home.