Cast a cold eye on life, on death, Amtrak, pass by!:
Amtrak has created a writing residency, or something between the clever use of social-media marketing and a ‘writing residency’.
From The New Yorker:
‘Amtrak is largely government-funded, though it operates as a for-profit enterprise. Also, it would cover Gross’s travel but wouldn’t pay her for writing. Still, there were similarities. While Amtrak was processing the tickets, Gross got an e-mail from Emily Mannix, a public-relations representative who works with Amtrak. ‘
Perhaps vigilant citizens who care about the arts and an open society could keep on eye on some struggling English and liberal arts majors out there. Your sympathy can become someone else’s ’empathy’ and from there the demands can flow.
From David Thompson quoting a piece in The Guardian:
‘The perennial question among most creative people I know is not what to create, but how to create: how am I going to write this book/play/polemic and also pay the rent? It’s a tricky balance. Apart from a lucky few writers who get big advances or grants, most novelists cannot live off their work. They need a second (or even third) job to keep on writing.’
Thompson in response:
‘This admission, by novelist Brigid Delaney in the Guardian, may prompt readers to wonder whether we have a surplus of such “creative people,” more than the market can support. More than is required. Certainly, the career prospects of being a novelist, playwright or unspecified creative person don’t sound terribly good:’
Food for thought.
Related On This Site: Repost-From Poemshape: ‘Let Poetry Die’
From 2 Blowhards-We Need The Arts: A Sob Story…
From Big Hollywood: ‘The National Endowment For The Art Of Persuasion?’
A museum industrial complex…more complexes…who are the people museums should be serving? James Panero At The New Criterion: ‘Time to Free NY’s Museums: The Met Responds’
Via Reason: ‘Salvador Allende’s Cybersocialist Command Center’