Shannon Dell rode Amtrak's California Zephyr, a breathtaking route from Chicago to San Francisco that runs through Colorado mountains, Nevada's gold and red desert boulders and beautiful Salt Lake City. Her only regret is that the train hurtled through Utah at night so she missed the snow topped Wasatch mountains.For More Info
For more information on Amtrak and the Amtrak Writer’s Residency experience, visit blog.Amtrak.com or follow #Amtrak Residency.
Almost all writers eventually collide with money worries and the loneliness of writer's block. Residencies are the oasis in the lonely desert, a place where writers can be nourished by the beautiful landscape around them and inspired by new experiences. Residencies can range from a year in a castle in Tuscany to a week in Key West using an office where Hemingway's typewriter still sits.
Chattanooga native Shannon Dell, 24, was one of 24 writers chosen recently for Amtrak's very unusual residency. She won't spend her time in one spot; she will write as she travels one of Amtrak's 15 long-distance rail routes across America. In exchange, she will write brief stories about her journeys that Amtrak posts on its blog.
"I haven't gotten the details from Amtrak yet, but I hope they let me ride the Pacific Northwest route," says Dell, eager to see the route's postcard-pretty views of Seattle, Portland and Klamath Falls.
"The longest train trip I've ever been on lasted 37 hours and went from Chicago to Denver and San Francisco to Seattle - all over the U.S.," says Dell, a staff writer and social media manager for the online Matador Network and a freelancer for BBC Travel and Business Insider. "There were times I woke up at 3 a.m. and wondered what in the name of God had I done. But mostly I enjoyed it. Nevada was particularly beautiful from the rails. I was sitting in a coach seat the whole time because I was too cheap to buy a ticket for a sleeper."
Shannon Dell’s travel tip for you
“My favorite Chattanooga road trip was to Elberton, Ga., about 45 minutes from Athens, Ga. to see the Guidestones, six granite blocks each weighing more than 235,000 pounds that are arranged in alignment with the moon and stars—like “They were built in 1980. Each one is inscribed with instructions on how to rebuild the human race and the planet Earth after some global disaster. My boyfriend took me there one Valentine’s Day because we had no money for gifts, but he knew I would love the Guidestones.“The instructions are in English, Spanish, Swahili, Sanskrit , Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. There is a special message on the highest slab written in Babylonian and ancient Greek — which will probably annoy global disaster survivors. The land where the Guidestones are placed was purchased by a man using the name RC Christian. The FBI allegedly investigated in 2014 when the stones were vandalized by graffiti reading,‘I am Isis, goddess of love.’ ”
This is the second year of Amtrak's residency program. Two writers each month travel round trip on pre-selected trains based on availability.
Dell stays on budget while traveling the world by never splurging on shoes, furniture or tech gadgets, allowing her a lot of freedom for fast moves. She was a Chattanoogan when she applied for Amtrak's residency, but "in April my boyfriend and I moved to Denver, Colo., because we both loved West."
To apply for the residency, each applicant was required to write a brief essay on how the program would benefit from his or her skills then upload 20 pages or less of their published or raw copy. The judges' panel included former Amtrak resident writers Lindsay Moran (who wrote a memoir of her former life as a CIA secret agent) and playwright Jeffrey Stanley, plus Amtrak Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Joe McHugh and writer Jessica Gross, who traveled on the Lake Shore Limited train as a trial run of the residency program. Her story about the ride was published in the prestigious Paris Review and spurred the formal launch of the program.
"My 2014 Amtrak residency from New York to Chicago and back was peaceful, contemplative, and so fruitful for my writing," Gross said in a statement.
Dell graduated from Girls Preparatory School then college in Savannah. A year ago, she became co-author of a blog called Strange & New in which she offers often-funny advice for no-frills travelers. Her posting about what to do when diarrhea strikes while ziplining cannot be quoted in this newspaper. Her tips for anyone who wants to maintain good personal hygiene while traveling in a van along the Australian coast for two months is quotable.
"Don't get me wrong - I'm all about the lifestyle of hairy legs, unwashed hair, and dirty fingernails," Dell wrote. "No one should ever feel like they have to do anything special to their looks to make the rest of the world happy. And if anyone ever tries to convince you otherwise, pull over and leave that person on the side of the road with no baby wipes, capiche?
"But for those wanting to opt out of smelling au naturel, here are tips on surviving the not-so-perky side of living in a musty Mitsubishi Express."
What follows is sound advice particularly germane for female travelers: stock the van with dry shampoo and baby wipes, learn what tampons look like in different nations and duck into any available shower even if you must share the stall with a garden snake.
Contact Lynda Edwards at 423-757-6391 or ledwards@timesfreepress.com.