NaNoWriMo’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

NaNoWriMo believes in the transformational power of creativity. Stories can capture the world’s imagination, inspire change-making conversation, and expose injustice—from The Bluest Eye to The Hunger Games, from The Hate U Give to The Jungle, from Kindred to A Wizard of Earthsea.

We believe the practice of creative writing can deepen and expand a person’s empathy and community. We believe this power should be shared by and made accessible to people of all ethnicities, genders, cultures, belief systems, class backgrounds, ages, abilities, and sexual orientations. NaNoWriMo’s staff and volunteers know that we have work to do to fully embody these beliefs, and are ready to pursue that work over the coming years with resources and humility.

The values and commitments of NaNoWriMo’s community include:

Diversity

We know that representation matters—both in our fiction and in our writing community. We celebrate the diversity of our communities, and are committed to creating NaNoWriMo spaces where writers of different ethnicities, genders, cultures, belief systems, class backgrounds, ages, abilities, and sexual orientations can grow, online and off.

We imagine a writing community that reflects the diversity of our world. To hold ourselves accountable, here are our 2022 demographics for November’s National Novel Writing Month, as gathered through our annual participant survey:

67.7% female, 15.7% male, 9.6% nonbinary, 7% self-identify/prefer not to identify

64.22% living in the United States, 35.78% outside of the US

Of the participants who live in the United States (with categories largely borrowed from the most recent U.S. census): 5% Asian American, 6% Black/African American, 5% Latine/Latinx/Hispanic, 0.6% Middle Eastern/ Arab American, 2% Native American/ Alaska Native, 0.7% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander, 78% white, 4.5% multiracial, 8% prefer not to answer

Of the participants in our Young Writers Program (which serves students under the age of 18 and educators) who live in the United States and who are in classrooms that receive our free resources: 11% Asian American, 12% Black/African American, 18% Latine/Latinx/Hispanic, 3% Middle Eastern/ Arab American, 2% Native American/ Alaska Native, 1% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander, 43% white, 9% multiracial

Equity

We acknowledge that different writers start with different opportunities, including varying access to education, writing time, technology, safety, and security.

We also acknowledge that the power to access and shape resources are more available to those who are white, male, straight, wealthy, cis, able-bodied, and/or neurotypical.

With these starting points in mind, we build policies, practices, and resources so that writers of different ethnicities, genders, cultures, belief systems, class backgrounds, ages, abilities, and sexual orientations have genuine and equal opportunities to thrive.

Inclusion

We create an environment—both online and in-person—that values respect, empathy, and growth. NaNoWriMo’s staff, volunteers, and community leaders model inclusion by acknowledging our limitations and biases, taking feedback seriously, and striving to make writers of different ethnicities, genders, cultures, belief systems, class backgrounds, ages, abilities, and sexual orientations feel safe and included at all levels of our community.

(Versión en español traducida por Hannelore Adler)

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Our Goals

Racial Equity

In thinking about our impact, NaNoWriMo has specifically focused on racial equity as a major organizational focus. We updated our racial equity strategy most recently on May 15, 2023. We invite you to review our goals and the work we have ahead:

View NaNoWriMo’s racial equity strategy.

Site Accessibility

NaNoWriMo is committed to meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to the highest level possible.

Thanks to the California Arts Council and the National Arts & Disability Center’s generous support, we worked with Accessible360 to do an audit of our site in 2021. They helped guide our tech team as we made accessibility improvements based on their suggestions.

More about the grant

This activity was supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Arts and Disability Center at the University of California Los Angeles.

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Additional Resources

Community Groups

Join the Writers of Color group on our forums.

Join the LGBTQIA+ Writers group on our forums.

Join the Writers With Chronic Illness, Disability, and/or Neurodivergence group on our forums.

Featured Resources

• View our public moderation policy for our community.
• An FAQ for writers who are thinking about writing characters from backgrounds/cultures they don’t share.
• Our blog series on writing racial diversity, created by Writing With Color.
• Learn bystander intervention skills from one of Right to Be’s free workshops. Be an ally in the NaNoWriMo community!

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Selected Updates and History

🌱 10/20/23 — NaNoWriMo suspended the moderator account of our former Lead Forums Moderator and current volunteer moderator after it came to light that she had made a racist comment about the current Online Community Manager to a former volunteer moderator via text message in December 2022.

• The text messages were posted to a TikTok account in August 2023.
• After becoming aware of them, NaNoWriMo’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) convened a meeting with the Online Community Manager and other involved staff to discuss next steps.
• The COO Reached out to the former Lead Forums Moderator requesting a meeting—the former Lead Forums Moderator asked for that meeting to be delayed.
• Once it was clear this meeting was not going to take place, staff met again and decided to formally terminate the former Lead Forums Moderator as a volunteer mod. She was given the option to post an apology and announcement herself to give her the opportunity to reflect on her actions and apologize to the community, particularly our Online Community Manager and other writers of color who may have seen those messages.
• However, the timeline and strategy for the rollout of the message was not finalized before it was posted. NaNoWriMo did not collaborate with our Lead Forums Moderator on the content of the message, nor did we deliver the appropriate advance notice to our Municipal Liaisons and volunteer forums moderators who would be most impacted by her removal.

🌱 9/28/23 — We sent 28 free classroom sets of Young Novelist Workbooks and 32 bundles of NaNoWriMo noveling books to teachers working in schools that receive school-wide Title 1 funds.

🌱 9/26/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed “Working at the Intersections: LGBTQ Nonprofit Staff and the Racial Leadership Gap.”

🌱 9/18/23 — We launched a revised version of our NaNo Prep 101 Workshop. Here is the note we posted on that page: In the past, we leaned heavily on traditional Western ideas of how to write a novel, and what makes a “good” story. Our resources still reflect that bias in many ways, but we made an effort this year to expand our offerings, and will continue diversifying our materials. Here are few helpful sources we used this year: Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses;  Beyond Hero’s Journey: Non-Western Story Structures and Decolonizing Tropes, two webcasts by WriteHive; and Ways to Decolonize Your Fiction Writing, a webcast by Dream Foundry. Have a suggestion for a resource we should share? Suggest it here!

🌱 9/15/23 — In order to provide a supportive space for BIPOC Municipal Liaisons to collaborate about their MLing experiences, we added an ML-specific channel to the Writers of Color Discord (an unofficial NaNo-adjacent community space).

🌱 9/12/23 — NaNoWriMo shifted its approach to promoting BIPOC book projects in order to prioritize deepening relationships. Each season, we’ll partner with one project, highlighting them across all platforms and seeing how we can best support them. This season, we’re highlighting Freedom To Read, a Native-led program of Red Media located in Tiwa Territory (Albuquerque, NM). Shop their wishlist to support radical literary access.

🌱 8/15/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed “What It Looks Like to Build a Pro-Black Organization.”

🌱 8/7/23 — In response to participant feedback, NaNoWriMo adding the following piece to our Codes of Conduct: Please refrain from proselytizing. You can discuss aspects of your identity like religion, gender, or ethnicity, but do not pressure other participants into following your religion; suggest that any gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc. is lesser than another; or question the identity of those in the LGBTQIA+ community. Additionally, please do not inform others that you will pray or have prayed for them without their permission.

🌱 6/30/23 — On June 30, the inaugural members of our Community Advisory Team (CAT) wrapped up their two-year term of service. This volunteer working group comprised of NaNoWriMo participants representing diverse backgrounds and creative journeys. Their perspectives—rooted in their unique experiences—helped shape our organizational decisions and strategy across all our staff teams, from programs to technology to fundraising too. As with all creations, all writing, the process is about vision and re-envisioning. After a thoughtful debrief process with the inaugural members, we’ve agreed to pause the Community Advisory Team initiative. Our hope is to re-open applications in 2024 with a new structure and vision for this amazing team.

🌱 6/6/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed “Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing.”

5/9/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed “It’s Time to Rethink ROI Metrics in Racial Justice.”

4/12/23 — We tweeted in support of Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who shared her account of how Scholastic wanted to feature her book only if she censored the word “racism” from her author’s note.

4/11/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed this interview with Tema Okun: “Tema Okun on her Mythical Paper on White Supremacy.”

3/31/23 — For Transgender Day of Visibility, we boosted organizations and resources that support trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer communities recommended by writers in our community, and donated USD $250 to the Trans Justice Funding Project’s Collective Action Fund.

3/8/23 — For International Women’s Day, we donated $250 to Indigenous Women Rising’s Abortion Fund and advocated for transgender rights by recommending people track the ACLU’s live map of U.S. states limiting trans health access to stay informed.

2/14/23 — NaNoWriMo HQ began our annual audit of our racial equity strategy and tactics. We assessed our 2022 programs and data, participant feedback, and staff feedback.

2/14/23 — NaNoWriMo staff read and discussed “Building Resilient Organizations.”

2/2/23 — Three staff members (Marya, Tiffany, and Shelby) attended the LitNet event, “What is an Equity Audit?”

2/1/23 — We highlighted the Afrori Books crowd-funding campaign in our store email and general newsletter, and offered a store discount for people who donated.

1/17/23 — In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, NaNoWriMo HQ donated $500 to Drum Major Institute, an organization dedicated to advancing Dr. King’s legacy of radical nonviolence, peace, justice, and equity. In addition to the individual activities the NaNoWriMo staff did on MLK Day, we also read and discussed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

1/10/23 — Based on responses to our post-November survey, we updated our 2022 demographic information in the Diversity section at the top of this page.

12/31/22 — In 2022, we hosted 17 virtual community meet-ups for Writers of Color and 8 for LGBTQIA+ writers.

12/1/22 — We made an effort to share more posts written by and for disabled and/or chronically ill writers on the NaNoWriMo blog, including: 50k is Overrated: NaNoWriMo from a Disabled Author’s Perspective; Three Ways to “Live First, Then Write” Within Your Limitations; and Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: Writing with Chronic Injuries.

11/21/22 — We posted on Twitter in response to the Club Q shootings, reaffirming our commitment to our queer writers, inviting them to our LGBTQIA+ virtual meetups, and sharing a quote by author and NaNoWriMo Pep Talker Kacen Callender’s book Felix Ever After: “I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.”

11/15/22 — We posted on Twitter to express solidarity with the HarperCollins Union workers on strike.

10/1/22 — In partnership with PEN America Prison and Justice Writing, NaNoWriMo sent free resources to incarcerated writers participating in NaNoWriMo and shared advice gathered from social media.

9/22/22 — We partnered with Fandom Forward on their Book Defenders campaign, which was “all about supporting universal access to books by getting stories into the hands of everyone who needs them.” We co-hosted a webcast with author Matthew Salesses.

9/15/22 — We sent 30 free classroom sets of Young Novelist Workbooks and 51 bundles of NaNoWriMo noveling books to teachers working in schools that receive school-wide Title 1 funds.

7/18/22 — NaNoWriMo partnered with We Need Diverse Books for a shared “Story is Power” fundraising campaign, mobilizing both our audiences and supporting the literary nonprofit ecosystem.

6/1/22 — Staff selected the fourth book to read and discuss together: Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses. This follows the books Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo, and Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad.

5/3/22 — NaNoWriMo emailed participants with some suggested action items in response to the leak that the Supreme Court was planning to overturn Roe v. Wade:

1. Reflect on the story behind this statement: “I love someone who has had an abortion.” Nearly 1 in 4 people who have uteruses have had an abortion. It’s likely that this already includes you or someone you love, or that it will be a decision you or a loved one will face in the future.
2. Within your means, consider making a personal donation to the National Network of Abortion Funds’s official ActBlue page. Contributions made here will be distributed evenly among 83 different local abortion funds across the United States. This contribution page is available to both U.S.-based and non-U.S.-based individuals who are at least 18 years in age.
3. Get active on social media! The following open-source toolkit will direct you to specific tweets and resources in your specific U.S. state.

4/29/22 — We solidified our approach to heritage/affinity months: “NaNoWriMo uses heritage months as a way to celebrate marginalized identities within our community and support these groups in advocating for causes and organizations they believe in. We approach the months as opportunities to proactively rather than reactively use our platforms for social change. Because we’re making an effort to center racial equity within our organizational strategy, in general, we devote more resources and staff energy to heritage months related to race, including: 

• Black History Month in February
• Arab American Heritage Month/ Middle Eastern and Northern African Heritage Month in April
• Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May
• Latine Heritage Month in September-October
• Native American Heritage Month in November

To further support our LGBTQIA+ writers, we also fully celebrate Pride Month in June by boosting relevant organizations, causes, and authors.  We acknowledge other heritage months, holidays, and identity recognition days in other ways, with a focus on building an inclusive community and sharing opportunities to learn and support each other. In general, we avoid engaging with religion/ religious identities outside of posting holiday well wishes.”

Visit our Instagram to see our affinity month-related advocacy, including organizations highlighted by author partners.

4/22/22 — We shared a resource from PEN America that highlighted the scope and scale of book bans in the United States in response to fear from parents, schools, and communities.

4/14/22 — Staff finalized our 2022 updates for our Racial Equity Strategy, and planned to pass it on to our Community Advisory Team for final approval.

4/13/22 — NaNoWriMo partnered with The Opportunity Agenda to present a webcast with writers Joey Clift and Aya de Leon that discussed how writers can write more empathetically and knowledgeably about economic injustice. Using the show Abbott Elementary as an example, we discussed The Opportunity Agenda’s recent report and recommendations about how to portray economic injustice and class in stories.

4/7/22 — To celebrate Arab-American Heritage Month, author Hala Alyan advocated for organizations that were meaningful to her through NaNoWriMo’s platforms. These organizations included Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services , American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Arab American National Museum.

3/8/22 — NaNoWriMo shared a post celebrating International Women’s Day. We had internal conversations about Women’s History Month, and some of the women on our staff shared articles that captured some of the nuance, complexity, and ambivalence around what the month symbolizes and how it’s often currently celebrated.

We received a piece of feedback from a participant on a post we made that shared resources and advocacy in response to the anti-trans legislation. She commented, “Please, please say at least one thing about women during women’s history month. You haven’t said a word about the attacks on women’s reproductive rights that have taken place across the US over the last few months. As far as I can tell, you have made two posts about women ever. One on binary gender stereotyping in 2020 and one on International Women’s day in 2017 about women writing under male pen names. I’m starting to feel like women aren’t welcome here.”

In response, we sent a private message that read, “Thanks for writing in! Women are absolutely welcome in our programs – in fact, they make up about 70% of our participants according to our most recent survey. We posted about some attacks on reproductive health in September, maybe you missed it? You can here. We don’t look at advocacy as being a zero sum game, and believe that advocating for trans rights, for example, makes everyone safer.”

3/7/22 — In response to anti-transgender legislation in Alabama and many other states, and anti-LGBTQIA+ education legislation in Florida, NaNoWriMo shared resources to learn more about the legislation, and how to support queer and trans people. NaNoWriMo also made a $500 donation to Trans Lifeline.

3/3/22 — Marya completed a rewrite of our Young Writers Program Codes of Conduct and moderation policies, with feedback from Tim and Letitia, to reflect NaNoWriMo’s values more deeply.

3/1/22 — NaNoWriMo shared resources through social media about the conflict in Ukraine, including ways to learn more and share financial support.

2/1/22 — To celebrate Black History Month, authors Nicole Glover, Mateo Askaripour, Ashley Woodfolk, Kwame Mbalia, and J.Elle advocated for organizations that were meaningful to them through NaNoWriMo’s platforms. These organizations included Sister Song, Coded By Kids, Black Girls Do Bike, Defy Ventures, Hidden Gems Literary Emporium, Books Are Pop Culture, Girls Make Beats, The Loveland Foundation, Brooklyn Book Bodega, we are, Project South, SpiritHouse, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and S.H.A.P.E. Community Center.

1/18/22 — NaNoWriMo HQ began our annual audit of our racial equity strategy and tactics. We assessed our 2022 programs and data, participant feedback, and staff feedback.

1/17/22 — In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, NaNoWriMo HQ offered to match $500 if participants donated to Fair Fight Action in support of voting rights and fair elections. We didn’t receive any reports of participant donations, and made a $500 donation from HQ regardless.

12/16/21 — NaNoWriMo hosted its final affinity-group virtual event for 2021. In total, NaNoWriMo hosted 21 events for our Writers of Color group (with major thanks to our volunteer Aditi S. for hosting write-ins for this group!), and 4 events for our LGBTQIA+ Writers group.

11/10/21 — To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, authors Andrea L. Rogers and Cynthia Leitich Smith, along with participant Javiera Morales advocated for organizations that were meaningful to them through NaNoWriMo’s platforms. These organizations included We Need Diverse Books, the Pixel Project, Lakohl wahohpi Immersion Nest at Sitting Bull College, the National Indian Education Association, and No White Saviors.

11/10/21 — In response to the race-aware trainings we offered to our volunteers, we had extensive conversations with some of our volunteers about how to present these types of trainings with full transparency, what appropriate expectations were for deadlines to complete such trainings during a very busy season for volunteers, and how to prepare similar trainings that were led by non-American trainers. We also had conversations about perfectionism, accessibility, white fragility, and trust-building with both white and BIPOC volunteers.

In addition, we parted ways with three volunteers who were not willing to take part in any such trainings.

11/10/21 — NaNoWriMo made a training called “Fix Your Posture: Cultivating True Community Partnerships”, led by Breauna Dorelus, available to its staff and volunteers. NaNoWriMo staff has been participating in such trainings and readings but this was the first time we’ve been able to make such trainings available to our 800+ volunteers. In total, NaNoWriMo offered three trainings centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion this year, and required all staff and volunteers to participate in at least one.

11/8/21 — NaNoWriMo made a training called “Boldly Creating Inclusive Spaces”, led by Cydnee Sanders, available to its staff and volunteers. NaNoWriMo staff has been participating in such trainings and readings but this was the first time we’ve been able to make such trainings available to our 800+ volunteers. In total, NaNoWriMo offered three trainings centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion this year, and required all staff and volunteers to participate in at least one.

11/4/21 — In partnership with We Need Diverse Books, NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program coordinated an author visit from Andrea Rogers, a Native author, for 4th graders on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana.

11/3/21 — NaNoWriMo made a training called Antiracism 101, led by Wendy Vang-Roberts and Lisa Joyslin, available to its staff and volunteers. NaNoWriMo staff has been participating in such trainings and readings but this was the first time we’ve been able to make such trainings available to our 800+ volunteers. In total, NaNoWriMo offered three trainings centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion this year, and required all staff and volunteers to participate in at least one.

10/21/21 — NaNoWriMo worked with an Amazon translation team to translate both versions of the our Young Novelist Workbook into Spanish.

9/14/21 — NaNoWriMo shared a statement about the passage of S.B. 8 in Texas, which restricted access to healthcare and abortions, on our social media platforms. It read as follows:

We’re still feeling shock, fear, and grief over the passing of S.B. 8 in Texas, and we know many of you are too. If you’re looking to support an organization that’s fighting against the ban and for the rights of Texans, this is a great list. https://nymag.com/strategist/2021/09/texas-abortion-ban-2021-where-to-donate.html

We believe that access to healthcare – like access to creativity – is a fundamental human right. If you want more information about your options, the ACLU is another place to look. https://www.aclutx.org/en/know-your-rights/abortion-in-texas

8/18/21 — NaNoWriMo shared resources in response to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the resulting turmoil for the people of Afghanistan, and resources in response to a destructive earthquake in Haiti. View the resources in our Twitter thread here.

7/26/21 — To celebrate Disability Pride Month, author Helen Hoang advocated for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network through NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms.

7/23/21 — The newly formed Community Advisory Team met for the first time. This is a body of folks who have participated in NaNoWriMo’s community and programs, gathered to represent participant voices in the organization’s strategy and goal-setting.

7/20/21 — NaNoWriMo staff began reading Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva.

7/9/21 — To celebrate Pride Month, authors Charlie Jane Anders, Kacen Callender, Aiden Thomas, and Emily X.R. Pan advocated for organizations that were meaningful to them through NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms. These included Trans Lifeline, the TGI Justice Project, Trans Housing Coalition, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Mermaids UK, the Okra Project, and the Transgender Law Center.

6/28/21 —  NaNoWriMo made some operations changes to compensate BIPOC employees for the additional labor that they undertake working within a predominantly and historically white institution.

6/24/21 — NaNoWriMo shared a statement about the cruelty inflicted by white settlers upon Indigenous people after the discovery of more dead bodies at a residential school for Indigenous people in Canada. It began as follows:

Sending love and support to Indigenous peoples grappling with another report of bodies found at a residential school. If you are a residential school survivor or dealing with intergenerational trauma, you can reach the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.

If you are not Indigenous and want to understand more about residential schools and the horrors they inflicted on Indigenous children and families in Canada and the United States so as to be a better ally to Indigenous peoples, we have some resources to share.

Read the full thread of resources here.

6/1/21 — We had a video call with one of our Arab Wrimos who is based in Israel, and received their perspective on the situation described below.

5/20/21 — NaNoWriMo shared a statement about Palestine and Israel on our social media and in our email newsletter. It read as follows:

We are standing in solidarity with our Wrimos in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. For a brief history of the current crisis, watch this short introductory video from Jewish Voice for Peace. We recognize our limited lens, so we encourage those in our community who are disturbed by the ongoing displacement and apartheid faced by the Palestinian people follow organizations such as Palestine Center and American Muslims for Palestine for action alerts, relevant news, and credible information about Palestine and the Israeli occupation. If you live in the U.S., you can also use this form to ask your representatives to support Palestinian human rights.

Our tweets read as follows (you can also view the thread on Twitter here):

We are standing in solidarity with our Wrimos in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. If you’d like to learn more about the current crisis, this report from @jvplive provides important context: https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/israeli-palestinian-conflict-101/

We recognize our limited lens & encourage those in our community who are disturbed by the current crisis & the ongoing displacement & apartheid faced by the Palestinian people to follow orgs like @AMPalestine & @PalestineCenter to learn how to take action. https://twitter.com/CAIRSFBA/status/1392183274353557504

Thanks to @ArabLit for sharing that @SaqiBooks is offering free ebooks about Palestine through their website until Monday, May 17! An incredible opportunity to read Palestinian authors like Mahmoud Darwish and learn from them: https://twitter.com/SaqiBooks/status/1392840442220142599

Our four MLs in Israel registered their hurt, disappointment, and anger as Jewish Israelis at the above statement and tweets from NaNoWriMo. These MLs expressed a desire for interconnectedness and peace, and shared their concerns that NaNoWriMo’s above statements were biased and needlessly divisive. During this meeting, it was also acknowledged that Israel had more power and more resources to protect their civilians but that it was still a terrifying experience to shelter from rockets being directed at civilian spaces and worry about dying. We met with these MLs for 90 minutes, and during that meeting, it was requested that NaNoWriMo:

1. Delete the tweets,
2. Apologize to Israel’s NaNoWriMo community.
3. They also shared their opinions that Jewish Voice for Peace did not reflect their views, and their opinion that the Palestine Center and American Muslims for Palestine were biased and inappropriate resources for those seeking to learn about the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
4. During this conversation, it was also recommended to review the Anti-Defamation League’s platforms for additional information.

We are hearing and holding that people within our community in Israel and Palestine are traumatized and pained by the experience of having to shelter from rockets and weapons aimed at them, and fully acknowledging that fear, trauma, and pain. It’s terrible, and no civilian should have to fear being targeted or killed by military actions.

• NaNoWriMo does not tolerate hate speech toward Jews or Palestinians, discrimination against people for being Jewish or Palestinian, or oppression of anyone solely for being Jewish or Palestinian.
• We will not tolerate conspiracy theories about Jewish or Palestinian people, or stereotypes that flatten and harm Jewish and Palestinian people.
• We will not tolerate any hate and harm directed at individual Jews or Palestinians based on the actions of governments/representative bodies, remembering that they are not individually responsible for these governments/bodies that they may not even support.

NaNoWriMo remains in solidarity with all of our Wrimos in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories. Our choice to use the words apartheid and displacement is based on the research and stances of Muslim and Palestinian organizations like the Palestine Center and American Muslims for Palestine, and by the following international/Jewish organizations: Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, Jewish Voice for Peace.

With additional gratitude toward the people who are experts in this field who spoke with us, and to the following resources/articles:

• Statement on Israel/Palestine by Scholars of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies
• “Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return” – Peter Beinart

NaNoWriMo believes that writing and creativity are powerful skills, and that people should have equitable access to these skills and to our community. We also acknowledge that this access is not currently equitable — people must be free of oppression and be confident in their ability to thrive in order to fully access their creativity. These beliefs are more thoroughly detailed in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement and racial equity strategy above, and inform how we advocate and educate, with and on behalf of our creative community. We strongly believe in the right to criticize states, governments, organizations, and policies, and believe that this contributes to more just societies. We know this applies to us, as well, and appreciate those that share their criticism, feedback, and thoughts with our nonprofit.

In the spirit of transparency, our actions are as follows:

1. NaNoWriMo will post this full account here on our website to keep a history of what happened, and to share the thoughts and perspective of our community members we’ve been able to speak with so far.
2. NaNoWriMo will not delete the tweets we made from our account.
3. Our staff will/have read, on recommendation from our Israeli MLs, this article by Matti Friedman.
4. We will actively recruit for Arab/Palestinian volunteers to create and lead a NaNoWriMo regions for Israel and occupied Palestinian territories, based on the observation from one of our MLs in Israel who pointed out that we do not currently have such volunteers/regions.
5. We will continue to speak to and hear from people in Israel/occupied Palestinian territories and in the diaspora… recognizing that we have not yet spoken with any Palestinian members of our community to the extent that we’ve spoken with our Jewish volunteers in Israel. We’ll also update this account based on those conversations if those folks give us permission to do so.

5/11/21 — Staff selected the third book to read and discuss together: Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva. This follows the book Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, by Ijeoma Oluo, and Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad.

4/29/21 — Accessible360 completed their second evaluation of the improvements and fixes our tech team made in response to their accessibility audit. We’ve closed 77 critical accessibility issues, and have made significant progress on 103 total issues.

4/28/21 — The programs team completed a deep dive into our volunteer recruitment, evaluation, and on-boarding practices. Our focus question was: “How can we better recruit, train, and support MLs of diverse backgrounds?”

We examined anonymized data we had gathered in 2020. One figure that jumped out was that 30.11% of our volunteer applications in 2020 were from people of color, but of the new volunteers we accepted, only 19.39% said they were people of color. Since our volunteer acceptance process is purely through written applications, without an in-person or video screening, we’re making shifts to our application processing practices, including lessening the importance of endorsements, streamlining our application, and changing our acceptance criteria.

4/10/21 — We launched our Writers of Color Zoom sessions in response to feedback from Fatima’s research project and interviews with BIPOC writers (see update from 10/28/20). More than 120 people registered; we’ve now held three of these community hangouts, with 20-40 regular live attendees.

4/2/21 — With feedback from our community, we rewrote our Codes of Conduct to make sure our online spaces (like our forums, chat spaces, Facebook group, etc.) are inclusive, welcoming, and equitably moderated.

3/31/21 — For the last two years, NaNoWriMo has partnered with PEN America to writers who are working on novels while incarcerated.

“‘Alongside the NaNoWriMo team, we have been able to carry out a central tenet of our work this past November: to empower incarcerated writers to forge writing communities on their own terms as well as connect them to the wider literary landscape outside the prison walls,'” said Mery Concepción, Volunteer Program Coordinator for PEN America’s Prison and Justin Writing Program.” Read the rest of the article, published in March, about this collaborative work on Lithub.

3/18/21 — NaNoWriMo staff spent the first months of the year auditing and revising our organizational racial equity strategy. We invite you to review our current tactics (and for transparency and accountability, where we stand on them), 2020 accomplishments, and foundational context.

3/15/21 — Accessible360 began their first QA (quality assurance) review of the initial phase of work our tech team has done in response to their audit. They will be reviewing our progress on 37 of the 258 issues they’ve flagged.

2/16/21 — NaNoWriMo began a staff-wide reading and discussion of the book Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, by Ijeoma Oluo. This is the second book we’re reading as a staff, after reading Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad.

2/8/21 — Accessible360 delivered the results of their first audit for our site, focusing on people who are primarily interacting with the website through a screen reader and/or their keyboards. Our tech development team began addressing the issues raised in the audit.

1/19/21 — NaNoWriMo HQ began our annual audit of our racial equity strategy and tactics. This included an assessment of our results from 2020, participant feedback, and staff review.

12/11/20 — In each of our store emails from September-December of 2020, we featured a Black or Indigenous-owned bookstore and included links to shop there as well as other ways to support them. Over the course of this four-month span, we featured eight bookstores and connected them with 4,293 book-buyers.

12/10/20 — We held our kick-off meeting with A360, who will be assessing the accessibility of the nanowrimo.org website.

11/01/20 — During a fundraising drive, NaNoWriMo offered Harry Potter-related prizes from small creators, without a direct financial benefit to JK Rowling. However, trans and nonbinary authors and members of our community let us know that this was hurtful to them, and supported JK Rowling and her bigotry, even if indirectly. NaNoWriMo pulled the Harry Potter-related prize that had not yet been awarded, and apologized on Twitter here.

The following day, we sent an email to partner authors about the hurt we caused the trans and nonbinary communities, offering them a full recap of what we’d done, apology, and the steps we were taking to address our impact.

We also canceled a forthcoming partnership with an organization affiliated with the Harry Potter fandom, made an internal policy to no longer partner with HP-fandom-related organizations or creators, and made a donation to Trans Lifeline.

10/28/20 — Research project begun by Fatima Mahmoud, NaNoWriMo tech intern, to determine how BIPOC users use the NaNoWriMo.org website so that we can properly weigh what BIPOC users might want from our tools.

10/22/20 — In response to one of our volunteers, who pointed out the lack of diversity in our historical pep talk archive, Sarah Mackey, our director of community engagement, shared an analysis of the diversity failure of our archive, and the steps NaNoWriMo has taken to address this since 2015. Read it here.

9/29/20 — We made a $500 match for We Need Diverse Book’s fundraising campaign to support WNDB In the Classroom, “an initiative that donates new books featuring diverse characters and written by diverse authors to schools and libraries across the country.”