Like so many of you, I was gutted to hear the news: NaNoWriMo is shutting down.
For those unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has been a huge part of the writing community for 25 years. It challenged writers to draft 50,000 words in the month of November, and in doing so, brought millions of us together, whether we were joining Discord servers online, meeting at coffee shop write-ins, or simply doing the challenge on our own. No other organisation had quite this strong of a pull in the writing industry.
The writing community is grieving. But the end isn’t really the thing that hurts most in itself. It’s how we got here, and what it reveals about leadership, trust, and the future of creative spaces.
A Long History of Love, and a Recent Series of Missteps
NaNoWriMo has meant a lot to writers. There’s no denying that. For many, it was the first place they felt like they could call themselves a writer. It was community. It was structure. It was excitement. It was permission.
So with the state of things online and how quickly big scandals can destroy celebrities, entities and entire organisations, you'd think that with a community so large and passionate, the huge missteps NaNo has made in recent years would have pushed the majority of people away or sparked calls to cancel the whole thing.
But that’s not what happened.
What makes this shutdown so disappointing is that the opposite happened. Writers did not rush to cancel NaNoWriMo. They didn’t storm the gates with torches the first time the organization slipped up. Of course, there were loud voices in the sea that called for that typical pitchfork exile we’ve all grown too accustomed to.
But overwhelmingly, while I did my research for this blog, what I found was that most commenters and community members weren’t so quick to judge. They were emotionally invested. They offered feedback. They showed up to help. They gave the leadership multiple chances to get it right, advised on the change that they wanted to see with the organisation.
And those chances were repeatedly fumbled.
So in case you may be out of the loop, over the past few years, several huge issues rocked NaNoWriMo:
- A forum safety scandal, in which a longtime volunteer moderator was accused of grooming minors in the Young Writers Program. This issue, raised as early as May 2023 (though according to some Reddit threads, it may have been brought up internally to moderators much sooner), wasn’t handled transparently or quickly enough. It took far too long to get any kind of acknowledgement, let alone intervention. It ended with the shutdown of the forums entirely, which left community threads, local groups, and historical connections wiped.
- A disastrous stance on AI, where NaNoWriMo leadership issued a statement that essentially defended AI-assisted writing, which in itself is a rocky opinion to flash in the writing community, but on its own might have been forgiven. The biggest problem arose when they put out a statement that the members of the community criticising their choice to support the use of AI were acting classist or ableist, essentially using disabled writers as a shield in a conversation many of those disabled writers themselves strongly opposed. They later acknowledged their misstep in phrasing, with a strong tone of blame for community vitriol after their initial statement.
- A failed sponsorship model, including a partnership with Inkitt (a publishing platform often criticised for questionable practices) and a general lack of transparency around how funding and partnerships were being handled.
Any one of these issues on their own could have been survivable. Maybe all of them if handled with transparency and sensitivity. But paired with tone-deaf responses, they brought a lot of fire to NaNo and its organisers.
And yet, even then, the large majority of the community didn’t abandon ship.
People called them out, yes. Most writers sent messages of concern, not hate. When NaNoWriMo released a statement framing blanket criticism of AI tools as classist or ableist, many disabled writers pushed back, saying they were being used as a shield for a broader defense of AI, which was a completely understandable response as disabled writers have been writing incredible fiction without the help of AI for decades and centuries.
Author Cass Morris responded on social media: "It’s pretty insulting to imply the only way some of us can get a foot in the door is through the use of a plagiarism machine." Sarah Salcedo echoed that, saying, "Disabled writers may use accommodating tools in our work, but it’s not the same as technology that steals others' work & destroys the climate."
And I think it’s really important to make the distinction that this wasn’t a mob with pitchforks trying to get the organisation cancelled, but a community of writers who actually care about what NaNo means to the writing space as a whole asking to be heard, asking for change.
Even former municipal liaisons and longtime volunteers for the organisation spoke out with clear feedback. For example, in Reddit threads discussing the shutdown, several former MLs (Municipal Liaisons) shared their disbelief over how leadership handled both the forum closure and the aftermath of the AI stance. Some of them even said that they had reached out to HQ multiple times offering their support, asking for feedback on how to handle the fallout, or asking for clearer direction just to be ignored.
Rightfully, the community’s been frustrated for a long time, trying to get answers and some kind of acknowledgement from the organisation’s leadership, but instead of responding or clarifying any of the ongoing issues, NaNo tried to bury the scandals by deleting comments on their social media posts from users mentioning certain words and even blocked their users from the official NaNo website for disagreeing with their stance.
I think where a lot of the community’s frustration comes from is that genuine concerns were repeatedly flagged as “community vitriol” and ignored. And NaNo had more than enough opportunities to respond with transparency and repair the things that they broke. But time and again, which is probably the most infuriating thing about this entire situation, was that NaNo’s leadership kept silent. And when they finally spoke out, they spoke out in a tone of defensiveness that avoided accountability.
A Mishandled Goodbye
When the shutdown was officially announced, many of us still held our breath, hoping for a graceful farewell. A thank-you. A sense of closure.
Instead, what we got was an apology video that didn’t feel like an apology.
The video (which you can watch here) came from Executive Director Kilby Blades. Rather than acknowledging the harm NaNo caused in the last few years, it showed us the organisation's flimsy financials and claimed the community treated the platform as free, implying that a lack of donations was to blame for its financial demise. There was little recognition of the community’s efforts to hold NaNo accountable or all the support offered to NaNo amidst the controversies.
Here's a response to that video by commenter @ArumiKai:
"Hi, I'm one of the people who brought the grooming issue to the attention of NaNo HQ back in May of 2023, and also reached out to the board of directors after HQ refused to address the problem...
This video is so strange to me -- it's not a heartfelt memorial, it doesn't talk about NaNoWriMo's legacy, it doesn't talk about community. In fact, it... blames the community for a lot of things, and has quite a bit of incorrect info, or info presented in a way meant to absolve the current ED of liability by twisting some of the facts."
This simply felt like a refusal to showcase accountability after years of chances to do so.
The Finances of it All
The apology video shows us that NaNo’s financial struggles were real and long-standing and they’re positioned as the primary reason NaNoWriMo went down.
In the same video, Blades details that as early as 2018, NaNo was running on shaky ground with incredibly low donations, saying the organisation relied heavily on emergency COVID relief funds to stay afloat in 2020 and 2021. In other words, this wasn’t a surprise to leadership.
But again, the community might have helped, had they been invited in with honesty and transparency. Instead, leadership kept quiet, chose partnerships that raised eyebrows, issued confusing AI statements, and treated criticism like attack.
Though the sense this video left on me was that this organisation had been mismanaged for a really long time, the most telling factor of it all being that they admitted to only having implemented background checks for their staff, educators and liaisons last year — staff who have regularly been working with children for 24 years.
Of course the community was in outrage. The video implies that much of NaNo’s downfall can be blamed on the undercurrent of negativity and toxicity, which made their partnerships more difficult to strike, and their donations dry up. Hence, we can conclude where their efforts to silence and block concerns came from.
And when this “vitriolic” community starts to be treated more like a PR threat than a group of people worth listening to, trust dissolves.
The irony of all this?
The majority of the community was still rooting for the event to bounce back.
This is what I keep coming back to.
In today’s digital world, it doesn’t take much to get cancelled. Say the wrong thing once, and it could cost you everything. (Ask me this each time I re-read an instagram carousel I'm about to post that contains even a modicum of personal opinions that go against the grain).
I’ve even been made aware of a few behind-the-scenes discussions (which I unfortunately can’t disclose) from writing companies who partnered with NaNo having conversations with NaNo’s leadership and offering to keep their support intact while asking them to address the controversy and do the work to fix their reputation. So, despite how badly NaNoWriMo mismanaged multiple crises, much of the community stuck around and simply asked them to be better.
That’s rare.
And the fact that grace was met with silence, blame, and deflection is the part that really hurts.
So what now?
There’s a duality here I’ve been sitting with.
I do grieve the loss of NaNoWriMo. I really do. It shaped so many writers, including myself. I wrote my first novel during the 2020 NaNo run. Something I never thought I’d be capable of. Built this business off the back of the butterfly effect that started, just two years later. To me, this organisation falling apart deserves mourning. I’m also angry.
And I’m not the only one feeling that way. Scroll through Reddit or Twitter, and you’ll see hundreds of comments from people who are heartbroken.
“This is like losing my creative home.”
“NaNoWriMo is the reason I even started writing again.”
“I can’t believe it’s just gone.”
I think it’s okay to be angry at the organisation, but also experience the grief over losing something that felt like it belonged to all of us.
But I also grieve what it could have been if only the people in charge had just trusted the community that built it. If they’d met criticism with openness and self-reflection, not ego. If they’d recognised that our call for accountability wasn’t an attack, but a chance to grow, something most communities wouldn’t have even offered.
NaNoWriMo may be shutting its doors, but writers aren’t going anywhere.
Already, local groups are planning new events. I’ve heard of Discord servers like "NaNoWriMo Refugees" and "Our NaNoWriMo" being created to give writers a new home and preserve that spirit of community. Some former MLs are coordinating independent challenges through Substack newsletters and writing forums.
There’s also chatter on Reddit and Twitter about using Campfire, 4thewords, and Scribophile as alternatives, though none offer quite the same feeling as NaNo once did. Still, the effort is there. Writers are figuring out how to recreate the sense of community NaNo once gave them, and it's clear the tradition won’t disappear with the site.
So yes, I’m disappointed. But I’m also hopeful.
The stories are still here. The writers are still writing.
We always were the ones keeping this alive. And we always will be.
FAQs
Why is NaNoWriMo shutting down?
NaNoWriMo is shutting down due to financial difficulties. However, leadership decisions, controversy over AI policies, and trust issues within the community also contributed to its decline.
What were the controversies surrounding NaNoWriMo before its shutdown?
Major issues included forum moderation failures that left users feeling unsafe, a controversial AI stance that alienated many writers, and a disconnect between leadership and the community, leading to frustration and lost trust.
Did the writing community try to save NaNoWriMo?
Yes. Many writers, including former Municipal Liaisons (MLs), reached out to leadership offering help, donations, and solutions. However, poor communication and a lack of transparency from HQ led to further dissatisfaction.
What happens to the NaNoWriMo website and resources now?
As of now, the future of NaNoWriMo’s website and resources remains uncertain. Some alternatives include StoryADay, 4theWords, and local writing sprints on Reddit and Discord.
Will there be a replacement for NaNoWriMo?
There’s no official replacement yet, but many writers are banding together to create new writing challenges and support systems. Keep an eye on social media and writing communities for updates.
Char Anna
Char is the author of the writing guide ‘Finish Your First Novel’ and the founder of The Plottery. She’s been in the biz since 2021, and holds a BA in Film & Screenwriting as well as an MA in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier University.
Char resides in rainy Scotland with her pup Lavender (who is anything but calm, contrary to what her name suggests), and she writes darker fiction that focuses on unusual family dynamics and lots of queerness.
