I'm so depressed to hear that NaNoWriMo is folding. I had a go at it in 2019 and wrote 30,000 words before I had a mammogram scare and went into a tailspin which meant I didn't finish. I have always felt like I would go back and try again some time. I liked the community and the support, the incentives, the local meetups, the merch... Now what? #NaNoWriMo

#NaNoWriMo is shutting down due to several years of deteriorating finances and inability to focus on fundraising because of child safety issues with the Young Writers space that had to take priority. Full notes from the Executive Director on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR6NnjgeIIY @bookstodon

#NaNoWriMo is shutting down due to several years of deteriorating finances and inability to focus on fundraising because of child safety issues with the Young Writers space that they had to take priority. Full notes from the Executive Director on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR6NnjgeIIY @bookstodon

NaNoWriMo Goes Bankrupt After Embracing AI
https://futurism.com/nanowrimo-closing-embracing-ai

US nonprofit National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), recently embroiled in AI and content moderation scandals, shuts down after 25 years, citing financial issues

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/01/nanowrimo-shut-down-after-ai-content-moderation-scandals/

#NaNoWriMo no no no https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/01/nanowrimo-shut-down-after-ai-content-moderation-scandals/

The whole point is to write as the act and process of writing is the purpose, not having some AI generate an end product. Such a waste.

Looks like #WritingMonth, my open source #NaNoWriMo alternative, just hit 750 users.

https://writingmonth.org

https://www.theverge.com/news/642258/nanowrimo-organization-shutting-down

NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit organization behind the annual writing challenge to finish a novel in November, is shutting down due to financial struggles.

This comes after participation and fundraising decreased in recent years, and controversies over the use of AI tools and child grooming allegations.

The NaNoWriMo site will remain online, but the challenges will no longer be formally hosted.

Gar nicht mitbekommen, dass hinter dem beliebten #NaNoWriMo zumindest laut dieser Zusammenfassung der letzten Jahre Skandale einige übelst Verstrahlte unterwegs sind.
Zudem: Ablehung von ›KI‹-Algos ist ableistisch und klassistisch, weil sich nicht jeder Fach-Hilfe beim Schreiben leisten kann, oder nicht das ›richtige Hirn‹ dafür hat??!!!
Consider my mind boggled.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/02/creative-writing-nanowrimo-to-close-after-20-years

woah

https://reactormag.com/nanowrimo-the-nonprofit-organization-is-shutting-down/

#nanowrimo is shutting down

NaNoWriMo has gone bankrupt, after an ill-considered choice involving AI. (I don't know the details.) I was an ML for Years 4-5.

I'm in south-central Connecticut, Greater New Haven area. If anyone is interested in a go-it-alone or, let's say, federated but locally-oriented effort come November, I'm game. Contact me here or privately.

I'm a bit rushed right now, but I'll add details later in comments below this post. Questions and comments welcome.

I think something that really isn't discussed clearly enough is highlighted here: https://flipboard.com/@futurism/futurism-1lupih3cz/-/a-u207kQCtTpO4CFsx3nlHdg%3Aa%3A1737388686-%2F0

Do you know that #writers were the ones donating to #NaNoWriMo ? And that generally speaking it is creatively inclined people who typically want to pay for the goods made by other creatively inclined people. That writers are typically readers who share book recommendations with other writers and have various #Books communities they're involved in.

1/

It's really bizarre to me that #NaNoWriMo was a full-on organization that needed funding in the first place.

I shudder to think how much organizational overhead is there is in #Inktober, #Movember and #Beecember...

Oh wow, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) annual challenge for writers that started as a Yahoo! mailing list in 1999 is shutting down.

"NaNoWriMo lost significant community support when it took a stand in favor of the use of artificial intelligence in creative writing. [...] Around the same time, the nonprofit was also lambasted for inconsistent moderation on its all-ages forums, which created an unsafe environment for teenage writers, community members claimed."

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/01/nanowrimo-shut-down-after-ai-content-moderation-scandals/

The #NaNoWriMo org is dead and GOOD RIDDANCE.

The dead org is trying to spin this as "the community is just too selfish to support us"

but

uh

NO.

The community deserted you because you betrayed them over and over and OVER AGAIN. Not just once ("let's accept scammers as sponsors!") Not just twice ("Oh, a mod was accused of child grooming? let's protect the mod and ban the kids!") but repeatedly.

Details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1ae3038/writing_discords_forums_and_a_decades_worth_of/

#AprilFools nonsense: the org running #NaNoWriMo announced on the 31st of March that they were going under, meaning most people read about it on April 1st - and enough people online are questioning the timing that if you idly looked, you might assume it was a hoax.

I don't think the annoucement stated an end date to their service, but a Reddit user suggested importing everything from NaNoWriMo to https://trackbear.app/ to save your stuff.

I'm sad that #NaNoWriMo is shutting down.

I was very vocal about their wholesale embrace of AI (to the extent that I boycotted last year) and think they'd have had a lot more support had they not done that - but I'm still sad about it. I've been taking part since the late 90s.

But that's just the thing. It was born from a community, and just because the company doesn't exist any more, doesn't mean NaNoWriMo won't.

You can't stop us writing. You can never stop us writing.

#NaNoWriMo is no more. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nanowrimo-shut-down-after-ai-content-moderation-scandals/ar-AA1C5znG