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Ksenia Anske

September 24, 2014

I have won the Amtrak Residency!!!

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Are you breathing? Are you breathing?? I'm not breathing. I can't move. I can't even blink. I can't believe it. Out of over 16,100 applicants only 24 writers were selected!

AND I'M ONE OF THEM!!!

What? What?? 

I have found out the news 2 days ago but couldn't share. I was dying to share, dying! And finally I can! Here is the official press release from Amtrak about it. And here is another blog post I have written about being selected as one of the 115 semi-finalists (including the full text of my application, for those of you curious), at which point I thought, Ah, whatever, I'll never win. I was supposed to send in a sample of my writing for the second round, so I have sent the opening of ROSEHEAD. Did that do the trick? I don't know. No clue. Maybe I will never find out. But what I do know is this.

I will start on a new novel while on a train.

I have a title already.

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TAGS: Amtrak, residency, trains, new novel, TUBE


June 18, 2014

Writing without fear

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Disclaimer. This post was supposed to be about the rhythm of your sentences, but it would have to wait. Till next post. Because. Some awesome shit happened yesterday. I'm still in the middle of it. And it is . . . are you ready? I'm not even ready myself. Here is the story.

Once upon a time someone mentioned on Twitter (I know, I know, it's where I get my news) something about Amtrak starting a writer's residency program, where they pay for your ticket to some city and back, and your part is to write about it. Anything. An article, an observation, a short story, whatever. There's been excitement around it, at first. Of course. Man, people love trains! There is something about the lull in the movement, the length of the beast, the walking from one compartment to the other, the gazing out the windows, the sleeping. It's the sleeping that I love most. To the staccato of wheels, to this propulsion in the night, when it's dark out, and you look and see a blur of trees and lights and wonder what you're passing. Wonder what eyes are watching you, out of the dark. Wonder. It's like a house on wheels, only it's better than a car. A car is on the road, roads are always leading to towns, cities, places where there are people. You can walk a road. But trains! Trains like to cut through wilderness, through places where there are hardly any people at all. Yes, some roads are desolate, but not as desolate as train tracks. Stephen King comes to mind, both with his novella The Body about a boy being killed on the train tracks and 3 boys finding his body, and the demented monorail train Blaine the Mono from The Dark Tower. Something about them, right? Something. Something special.

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TAGS: writing, fear, amtrak, residency, program, trains, exposure