Dear NaNoWriMo HQ,
Over the past twenty years I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo since 2002, created Wikiwrimo (that staff referred to regularly at one point), attended Night of Writing Dangerously six times, volunteered on the NaNoWordSprints Twitter for over ten years, served on the Community Advisory Team, and MLed for the Atlanta region long before anyone remembers. Oh, and written almost 3 million words thanks to NaNoWriMo. You could say NaNoWriMo is a small hobby. I hate to pull this card, but you have no idea who I am, and if you did, maybe you’d have a better idea of the deep shit NaNoWriMo HQ has found itself in over the past year and a half.
I wrote to the board back in November to express the community impact of any decisions HQ would make during a tumultous time. Maybe you read it while you were still on the board. Maybe you didn’t. I don’t know either way because I never got a reply. Nonetheless, it’s publicly readable here.
In that letter I told my personal NaNoWriMo story and called out that NaNoWriMo is nothing without its community. Let’s look at that closing line again:
“Ponder this: If you rebuild the organization but lose the amazing community that built NaNoWriMo, then have you saved anything at all?”
That wasn’t a rhetorical question.
In case you’re not aware, NaNoWriMo exists because of the community. The 21 original participants in 1999 told their friends, who told their friends, who started telling random people on the internet around the time the blogosphere got big. By the time I joined as a bright-eyed teen in 2002, the NaNoWriMo community had graduated from a large Yahoo group (remember those?) to a forum. And it grew bigger and bigger to the point where Chris Baty and a few friends couldn’t run it out of coffeeshops anymore.
I get it, NaNoWriMo HQ does need changes to make sure the events of the past year and beyond don’t happen again. It’s a long hard road to make sure MLs feel safe communicating with their co-MLs. That they feel safe kicking a predator or stalker out of their community and can do so with the support of HQ. That forum moderators and participants aren’t being abused or groomed (this just in, adults can be victims too). That these issues aren’t brushed off when the ML brings them to HQ, as they have been so many times.
There are two crucial things you’ve missed in your attempts to turn NaNoWriMo around.
You have treated saving NaNoWriMo as saving an organization with no regard (and dare I say active contempt) for the volunteers and writers who have made NaNoWriMo what it once was. I don’t need to be a volunteer to see your communications with MLs, the people who worked on the ground as head cheerleaders and write-in hosts and plot doctors while writing their own books and somehow having their own lives. Screenshots and discussions have popped up all over the internet. Every interaction with a now-past volunteer makes it clear that you are unfit to serve.
The second is much worse in my opinion. Trust goes both ways.
For years, Wrimos have kept putting trust in HQ when they screwed up or underdelivered, believing that HQ would make it up eventually. I was guilty of that myself for years.
Then the Ivan the Icy incident happened, and MLs helped cover it up. MLs discovered they couldn’t kick the resident creeper or stalker out of write-ins. They couldn’t get third-party intervention. Criticizing predatory “publishers” as sponsors was shut down. The 2019 website launch was poorly thought out and barely usable. The report of a forum moderator grooming minors onsite went ignored, while a racist comment from a former staff member offsite was swiftly punished. The censorship of the NaNoWriMo forums, where even a nuanced critique of HQ is viewed as vitriol. The statement on using AI in NaNoWriMo is non-nuanced, refuses to acknowledge that there are free or low-cost ways to achieve similar end results, and throws disabled writers under the bus for social justice points.
And all we heard was “If you can’t trust us, I don’t see how we can move forward”. As if one community member who has put so much time and heart into NaNoWriMo is expendable.
No wonder the community is all out of trust. Many of us who stuck it out for this long only did so because of our regions or for the friends we made along the way or because letting go of something that’s so close to our hearts is hard.
We’re tired of being let down over and over, and that’s what caused the constant blowup NaNoWriMo has faced for the past couple of years. That’s why people are leaving in droves, especially after your statement throwing disabled people under the bus for social justice points while defending AI with sweeping generalizations. For many of us, this isn’t the first or second or even fifth violation of community trust. It’s a “Sigh, HQ is at it again, how much more than I take?” The answer is “Not much more.”
At this point, I’m completely out of trust, not just for NaNoWriMo as an organization, but for the current interim executive director, Kilby Blades. Kilby, you deflect responsibility, blame the fact that you’re doing everyone’s work for your choices, and gaslight volunteers, but fail to take responsibility for the one thing you can: your own actions.
I do not think NaNoWriMo the organization is salvageable in its current state, especially while Kilby Blades remains at NaNoWriMo. In some situations, getting worse before getting better is typical and good. But in this case, getting worse before getting better comes with the biggest cost of all: losing your community’s trust. You have breached the trust thermocline.
This wasn’t easy to write, but it’s even harder to publish; I’ve had several versions of this post almost completely written, sitting in my drafts, for several months. Over half my wardrobe has been unwearable this year because of the fifty NaNoWriMo shirts. If I have to use a NaNoWriMo mug during my workday, I actively try to hide the NaNoWriMo logo side during calls. I’ve donated thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of hours into the NaNoWriMo community over the years. NaNoWriMo has driven life decisions such as where to go to college. It was even on my resume early in my career.
It’s been 22 years, and given the choice between the NaNoWriMo organization and the NaNoWriMo community, I’ll choose the community every time. HQ’s actions have made it clear that the two are mutually exclusive. I’m done with you, NaNoWriMo HQ.
Sushi out.
[signature line goes here]
sushimustwrite (Sushi, she/her)
NaNoWriMo participant and winner, 2002-2023
Wikiwrimo.org founder and administrator, 2010-present (fate TBD)
@NaNoWordSprints Twitter sprint leader, 2011-2022
NaNoWriMo Community Advisory Team member, 2021-2023
USA :: Georgia :: Atlanta Municipal Liaison, 2011