Tracks & Tales: A New Mexico Storyathon

Board the train. Find your story. Become a published author.

What if your writing retreat began the moment you stepped onto the platform?

This one-of-a-kind weekend event combines the romance of rail travel with the creative energy of the beloved Short Storyathon. You'll board Amtrak's Southwest Chief — consistently ranked one of the most scenic train routes in America — departing from Albuquerque's historic Alvarado Transportation Center and arriving in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where high desert plateaus and expansive open landscapes of Northern New Mexico unfold outside your window. The journey itself is your first writing sprint.

Upon arrival, you'll step off the train and directly into the Castañeda Hotel — Fred Harvey's very first trackside hotel, built in 1898 and the beginning of America's first hospitality empire. Each of the hotel's twenty-two unique rooms is decorated with Victorian antiques and named after an animal or a Fred Harvey historic site — the perfect backdrop for the story you're about to write.

Here's how the weekend unfolds:

10/23 - Friday Morning — All Aboard Board the Southwest Chief at 11:32 AM in Albuquerque and settle in for the ~3-hour journey to Las Vegas, NM. Use the ride to brainstorm ideas, journal, and absorb the landscape that has inspired storytellers for generations. Check in to the Castañeda, get oriented, and join your fellow writers for a kickoff session covering the essentials of short story structure and how to generate compelling ideas.

10/24 - Saturday — Writing Day Wake up in a piece of history and write. Morning writing sprints and hourly check-ins will keep you moving. Midday sessions cover book cover design using Canva or working with a professional artist. The afternoon brings peer reviews and revision sessions. By evening, send your first three pages to our professional editors — feedback included in your ticket.

10/25 - Sunday — Publishing Day Final polish, edits, and then the moment you've been building toward: publishing your story on Amazon (any time, even on the train). Learn how to craft an irresistible blurb, choose the right categories, and hit "publish" — right there in the same hotel where Teddy Roosevelt once celebrated with his Rough Riders. Leave Las Vegas, NM at 11:37 AM and arrive in Albuquerque at 3 PM.

• Round-trip Amtrak Southwest Chief train ticket (Albuquerque ↔ Las Vegas, NM)
• Two nights at the historic Castañeda Hotel
• All Storyathon sessions and resources
• Professional editing for your first three pages
• A finished writing project

Why here? Why now? There's something about motion — the rhythm of the rails, the desert scrolling past — that unlocks the writer's mind. Pair that with one of New Mexico's most storied destinations, and you have the conditions for a story that could only be written in this place, on this weekend.

Led by Sonja Dewing — award-winning thriller author, founder of the Women's Thriller Writers Association, and named Best Author in New Mexico 2024. She's led the Short Storyathon for over ten years, and has helped hundreds of authors to finish and publish!