NaNoWriMo Goes Bankrupt After Embracing AI

A quarter century after its inception — and less than a year after its "full-throated" defense of artificial intelligence in writing — the nonprofit behind the annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge is closing its doors. Kilby Blades, a romance author serving as NaNoWriMo's interim executive director, announced in a video and in emails posted to social media that the nonprofit, which challenged participants to crank out a draft for a novel every November, would be shuttering because, essentially, it's out of money. In the nearly 30-minute-long video, Blades explained in detail the money problems that the competition — which spawned the bestselling "Water For Elephants" and incorporated into a nonprofit six years ago — has suffered, which sound both stark and legitimate. Though the interim director did address prior allegations of abuse and grooming regarding the nonprofit's forums, she failed to mention the most recent elephant in the room: that last year, the gro ... Read full article.