Comments

1
I was wondering how long it would take to see this name in a byline. Stranger editorial has had an inexplicable crush on Seattlish lately.

2
A more important reason Amtrak ridership is down in the Northwest: huge increase in oil and coal trains causing delays.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/northwestt…

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/06/272150321/…
3
Amtrak has already notified applicants that they are aware of the problem and are revising the fine print as we speak. You should have gotten an email. All the people I know who applied did, and posted the text on FB.

You're a little behind on this one.
4
Amtrak is a rolling ghetto with some of the most unfriendly employees I have ever encountered while traveling.
5
Likely a case of overzealous copy and paste of legal terms, but it's great for people to let Amtrak know it isn't cool. They most definitely should not be able to publish audition materials.
6
This is why copyrights and patents should only belong to human creators and revert to them, even if sold or given, after the first period of copyright, until they die.

Corporations aren't people.
7
Government subsidized prose rolling on the tracks. I imagine they also had a special menu for the event with an inspiring wine list.
8
@3 I didn't get one, so she might not've either! Paste some text?

I discussed this a tonnnn on Twitter, and given that they're revising, I think the initial intent was that they want your essay questions for their own use for whatever -- which I'm cool with. The fine print ALSO says that the writing sample can be previously published, which would also support that theory.
9
It turns out my source was a series of Tweets from one Katie Kurtz, who mentions the SFWA has entered into discussions with Amtrak regarding Clause 6.
She also claims the uploader is unavailable until they fix the clause, so that part should be easy enough to verify.
10

Talk about egregious oversteps of intellectual property law.

I just signed one that not only gives them the right to anything I publish in their journal, but the right to use anything of my own that I then refer to or quote in my writings for them!

Eventually writing a comment will give Facebook the ownership of my car.
11
@9: Links would also be helpful!
12
It's right there on Google, first three or so hits under katie kurtz twitter. It's all jumbled and scattered though, so it isn't like a single link would be helpful. The whole story is a combination of Amtrak Tweets, people's tweets, and comments on the Amtrak website. I can't find the tweet that supposedly links to the SFWA comments. Maybe your Twitter-Fu is better than mine.
https://twitter.com/_katiekurtz_
13
@12 thanks? there were a ton of katies in the google results, so i was hoping you had links to what you saw...
14
@2 You are wrong. You have a hard on for the coal export plan and the oil trains coming through
Seattle. There are no facts that indicate that ridership is down because of the "delays" caused by the rail cars. You are digging pretty deep to make that insane comment, even with your lame attachments you make a pretty weak case.
15
@14 "You have a hard on for the coal export plan and the oil trains coming through Seattle."

Quite the opposite.
16
I don't see what your age or gender have to do with it. Why don't you just buy a ticket if you want to ride, and write, on the train?

Everyone wants something for free. Well, most free things aren't, really, free. Why should "writers" or even writers ride the train for free, when no one else can? Amtrak is owned by the government, and the government should treat folks equally. Writers have no more entitlement to train service than anyone else.

The whole thing stinks. And I, for one, am glad there is a nasty footnote attached to being a "free rider."

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