Region/USA/GA/Atlanta

The United States::Georgia::Atlanta NaNoWriMo region consists of the city of Atlanta and the greater Atlanta area. It is a large and active region with write-ins and activities going on all over the area as well as an active online presence. The region is affectionately known as NaNoLanta to its Wrimos.

Like metropolitan Atlanta, NaNoLanta is very spread out geographically - while the city of Atlanta itself is not abnormally large, the combined metropolitan statistical area for Atlanta is over 8,000 square miles and consists of over 100 cities in 28 counties. Wrimos living as far south as Fayette and Henry Counties in southern metro Atlanta and as far north as Hall County as often considered to be part of the Atlanta region. Wrimos from other neighboring regions occasionally make appearances at Atlanta events as well due to its centrality in the state and easy accessibility.

History

The Atlanta region has existed formally since at least 2003.

In the year 2009, the region expanded to have three co-MLs, mattkinsi, tiakall, and jazzyjinx. With the additional organizational power, the region exploded with growth and programs. The website nanolanta.org was started, a regional chatroom was formed, and a regional twitter and facebook page were created. 2009 saw the dawn of kick offs at The Varsity (a well-known symbol of Atlanta), the NaNoLanta Mentoring Program, and daily writing prompts posted on the forum. The name "NaNoLanta" was coined at that time, and the MLs had a contest for the motto with the winner "Writing on our Minds", and adopted the Nanolanta mascot – the panda. Why a panda? In addition to Zoo Atlanta being one of only four zoos in the US to keep giant pandas, Mattkinsi passed them out as a write-in souvenir at the first annual IKEA write-in. Nanolanta also announced its first inter-region war against the city of Denver, and barely won both: word count by only 200,000 words and donation total by 35 dollars.

2010 saw a new page turned in the life of the NaNoLanta region. Longtime co-ML Jazzy focused on a new local region in the Cumming/Forsyth area, with MattKinsi and Tiakall heading up the region. They brought on an assistant ML, Hype, to help coordinate the Great NaNoWriMo Book Drive. There was an explosion in the number of participants in NaNoLanta – over 2000 participated, over half of whom were new to NaNoWriMo. There was an equally explosive number of writeins organized all over the Atlanta Metro region, often with four or five on the same day (and sometimes at the same times!) Nanolanta began to work more closely with other regions, and formed strong bonds with both Seattle and Quebec. NaNoLanta stepped up to a new stratosphere with its fundraising. Although the 14th largest region according to number of active participants, they placed fifth in overall fundraising and won the Kodiak Bears Donation Derby for change in average donations from 2009. A new program this year was the highly successful Adopt-a-Day program, wherein a wrimo (usually of NaNoLanta) would write up a peptalk for the day, and donate $10 in the name of the wrimo with the highest wordcount. Nanolanta took on a challenge in their inter-region wars - Dallas/Ft. Worth (for total wordcount/donations) and Seattle (for average wordcount). Nanolanta lost the wordcount war with Denver, but won the donation war, so it was a draw 1-1, whereas the war with Seattle was a loss...this year.

2011 will continue to be a period of growth for Nanolanta, with even higher participant numbers expected. Nanolanta has already challenged Seattle to a rematch of average wordcount and Toronto to a total wordcount/donation war.

Statistics

2010 - Nanolanta wrote 26,164,931 words and ended in 15th in the global word count battle.
2009 – Nanolanta wrote 18,728,336 words and ended in 12th in the global word count battle.
2008 – Nanolanta wrote 10,950,215 words and ended in 19th in the global word count battle.
2007 – Nanolanta wrote 7,059,285 words and ended in 19th in the global word count battle.
2006 – Nanolanta wrote 6,690,822 words and ended in 19th in the global word count battle.
2005 - Nanolanta wrote 2,165,752 words and ended in 26th in the global word count battle.

Municipal Liaisons

Present

• mattkinsi (2009-present)
• tiakall (2009-present)

Past

• opheliaday (?-2003?)
• jazzyjinx (?2005-2009)

Nearby Regions

• Kennesaw, just over Kennesaw Mountain to the northwest of metro Atlanta.
• Cumming and Forsyth County, a NaNo region led by former NaNoLanta ML jazzyjinx.
• North Georgia, the North Georgia region for those who live too far north to be considered part of NaNoLanta.
• Rome, about an hour north of Atlanta.

External Links

• Regional website
• NaNoWriMo regional forum
• Regional Twitter
• Regional Flickr pool