What on earth is going on at NaNoWriMo HQ? Here's a high level summary compiled by an anonymous community member.
Region/USA/GA/Atlanta
The USA :: 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 are 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 Dallas, but won the donation war, so it was a draw 1-1, whereas the war with Seattle was a loss...this year.
2011 continued to be a period of growth for Nanolanta, with even higher participant numbers expected. Nanolanta challenged Seattle to a rematch of average wordcount and Toronto to a total wordcount/donation war. The region also hosted its first Evening of Writing Wildly, an unofficial version of the Night of Writing Dangerously.
Events
- Kickoff parties, including the iconic Varsity kickoff party
- MARTA write-in: a series of write-ins over the course of a day within a few blocks of MARTA stations. Past spots have included Sip the Experience, Zen Tea, and even the airport. Previously organized by Wrimo quintopia; now organized by ML Zhelana.
- Evening of Writing Wildly: A regional spinoff of the Night of Writing Dangerously first held in 2011. The $25 donation entry fee goes back to NaNo and comes with a potluck dinner, word wars, speakers, and blowing the vuvuzela when reaching a multiple of 10,000 words. It has been held at Oglethorpe University, Challenges Comics, Agnes Scott College, and the studio space of a Wrimo.
- Ikea Writein: A couple of hours of writing followed by photo shoots in the furniture displays
- TGIO parties
Statistics
- 2020: 670 novelists; 13,247,037 words written; 19,772 average wordcount[1]
- 2019 - stats unavailable[2]
- 2018 - Nanolanta's 1,216 novelists wrote 20,282,383 words, with an average word count of 16,679.
- 2017 – Nanolanta's 1,205 novelists wrote 20,288,077 words, with an average word count of 16,836.
- 2016 – Nanolanta's 1,379 novelists wrote 21,538,100 words, with an average word count of 15,618.
- 2015 – Nanolanta's 1,383 novelists wrote 24,871,555 words, with an average word count of 17,983.
- 2014 – Nanolanta's 1,354 novelists wrote 21,495,766 words, with an average word count of 15,875.
- 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
- Zhelana (2018-present)
- lastsyllable (2019-present)
Past
- Christina Rudy (2002)
- opheliaday (2002-2003)
- Tiger66466 (2003-2004)
- Lorianne Watts (2004)
- jazzyjinx (2005-2009)
- satori (2005)
- sushimustwrite (2011)
- sushimustwrite has haunted the forums with her post count and catchy username since 2002. She is for the licking of MattKinsi and against the eating of sushi, both of which happen to have Twitter hashtags. She also runs this site and stepped down from MLing after the 2011 season to devote herself to this wiki and more NaNo community efforts.
- Mattkinsi (2009-2012)
- Mattkinsi is perhaps the most well-known ML of Atlanta for being an ML of Atlanta, spawning an internet meme devoted to him and his trademark trait of writing depressing litfic. Some MLs refer to him as "The Prophet" for reasons unknown to the rest of the Wrimo population. He moved out of state after NaNo 2012.
- tiakall (2009-2012)
- tiakall is most well-known for being short, having an unhealthy love of puns, being unable to stick to a reasonable wordcount goal, and is rumored to be a ninja on the side. She tends to write fantasy and loves character torture. She also moderated several forums while MLing and continues to do so.
- Hype (2011-2013)
- Hype is short and known for giggling uncontrollably at write-ins while not writing. She has explored several different genres for her NaNo novels over the years. As NaNoLanta's in-house designer, she also makes the NaNoLanta website look pretty.
- hayleynyc (2013)
- Hayley is known for organizing the Evening of Writing Wildly and making it go smoothly.
- JFCJames (2014-2016)
- lapixystix (2014-2016)
- Klepto Von Umbre (2014, 2018-2019)
- Klepto hosted the Loving Hut writeins even before MLing, which eventually became one of the most well-attended events. They also created a lot of art for the Atlanta region.
- stillalive (2016)
- SparkleKate (2016-2017)
- AgentAntigone (2017)
- alexvillasana (2018)
- rswinehart3 (2016, 2018)
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.
- Macon, about an hour south of Atlanta.
