Testimonials

“I am an art teacher in a low income middle school. Many of my students struggle with reading and writing skills. For the past four years, my students have written, edited and published their own novels through the Young Writers Program. I have witnessed amazing transformations through this program. I have students that were disengaged and at risk for being retained or possibly dropping out, who discovered a love of writing, reading and learning through the process. Most importantly, my students build confidence in their ability to accomplish any goal and it translates into other areas of their lives. And every year, former students, now in high school, return to join our Novel Writing group.

The fact that it is a free program is amazing and essential. My school and my students could never afford to pay for the curriculum, free proof copy and awesome website. I am so thankful for the Office of Letters and Light, and I have an army of students behind me that would say the same.”
–  YWP Teacher/Educator

“I thought the OLL was great, but it wasn’t until 2010 when I became a municipal liaison here in Cape Town, South Africa that I truly began to appreciate the magnitude of the work that they do, and the good that they spread through a global network of more than 250,000 people.

As a municipal liaison I worked as a local volunteer to encourage people in my community, my town and my country to take a chance and get out there and write. My favourite story from last year was of one of my participants, a gentleman from an underprivileged community who told me at the beginning of the month that he was the only person he knew in his community who wrote and that no one could understand why he would bother with writing a novel in a month. By the end of the month he had people coming up to him asking when his book was going to be finished and when they could read it, and this from a community for whom reading is not a high priority. I’m truly grateful to the OLL for putting together a program that lets me grow as an individual, and that lets me help others grow their potential as well.”
– Municipal Liaison

“This program and organization have helped me overcome deep depression and the isolation that comes with illness. It has helped me rediscover my own creativity in ways that are both healing and somewhat miraculous. Because of the inspiration and encouragement offered by this organization, I have managed to write over 50,000 words every single year I have participated. And it’s not just the home organization that has encouraged this success, but the grassroots community it has created in my life. I have made friends all over the world, as well as in person. Currently, my two best friends are women I met during my first year as a participant. We now see each other once a week to encourage each others’ creativity, and also to help each other survive our roller coaster lives that include divorce, illness, and unemployment. Without this organization, I would be in serious trouble with my life and my health.”
– NaNoWriMo Participant

“At first, the concept behind NaNoWriMo, sponsored by OLL seemed both strange and ridiculous. True, many people dream of writing a novel, and few ever carry through with it, regardless of eventual publication, but do it in a month? Ridiculous!

However, the concept provides two important incentives. First, there’s the focus. You MUST do it in a month, at least you think you must. In fact, if you ‘fail’ you’ve still won, because you tried. You learned, you stretched yourself, and you accomplished something. More importantly, NaNoWriMo gave you “permission” to write material that wasn’t going to win a Nobel Prize. You learned you could write junk, and fix it later.

Ultimately, some participants do seek publication, and I consider myself fortunate to have been successful in that endeavor. With one novel, and one non-fiction book ‘out’ I’m still writing, and I still join in NaNoWriMo every fall.

OLL, without requiring me to spend hundreds of dollars, provides a creative outlet that cannot be rivaled, and the shared forums and other elements help me in ways that would cost thousands through some MFA program. They also provide things, like that “permission” clause, that no MFA program ever considered. In short, OLL through NaNoWriMo, is helping to create the next generation of writers, be they adults or school children.”
– NaNoWriMo Participant

“As a Municipal Liaison, I see first hand how this organization helps people of all ages see past their limitations and take chances. Via OLL, I have personally helped supposedly mentally-challenged seventh and eighth graders write entire novels. These were students for whom the school system had failed. If it weren’t for OLL, they would have never known that they were more than their label.”
– Municipal Liaison

“NaNoWriMo and the Office of Letters and Light changed my life.

No exaggeration.

Because of this program, because I took them up on on the challenge they presented, because I opened myself up to the motivation, encouragement and programs they made available to me – I reached a goal I had never dreamed possible. I FINISHED a novel. My teen daughter finished a novel as well, on the same evening I did! This experience bonded us as no other could.

Because of people that I connected with who were also accepting the challenge, I began another venture that I never thought possible. And another. Several opportunities have presented themselves since I won NaNoWriMo and because of the lessons I learned through it, I grabbed at them and held them tight and RAN. I now posses, not only a 50,000+ word manuscript, but a belief in myself and my gifts.

I entered NaNoWriMo as a mommyblogger who gave it away for free. Within the last three months I have become a paid columnist, a podcaster, and am working with a critique partner to polish and revise my manuscript. All this because of the programs presented by The Office of Letters and Light.”
– NaNoWriMo Participant

“It’s amazing how Nanowrimo has helped give the writers in Singapore exposure. Many of our participants are teenage writers who never thought there was a writing community in the country, and coming to Nanowrimo has helped them see that there is. It’s helped them interact with other writers of varying ages in a safe, open and engaging environment that we don’t have elsewhere. It’s also helped a lot of them become more confident in their writing (which isn’t really see as a ‘productive’ pursuit to have in our school results-oriented country).”
– Municipal Liaison

“I have a video of myself at four years old telling my mother that all I want to do when I grow up is write stories. It feels like I spent half my childhood with a pen in my hand crafting imaginative tales that took me far away from my own life. As I grew so did my vocabulary and eloquence– I began to get serious in my pursuit of writing as a career. And of course, what better way to accomplish this than go to a reputable college and declare an English major. This is where my brilliant plan went awry. As it turns out spending all of one’s time applying literary theory to Heart of Darkness is the single best way to lose one’s love of creative writing. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been a devoted reader, but all of a sudden I had no time, energy or reason to create anything new. That is, until NaNoWriMo. All of a sudden I had to sit down every single day and put words on a page. It was like something was awakened in me that I hadn’t felt since my early teens. I was a writer again. It was as though my imagination had been in hibernation this whole time but the moment I woke it up it took up right where it left off and in the space of only a couple of days I remembered why I wanted to write. It is impossible to express in this short space what those 50,000 words did for me, but believe me when I say that I arrived in December completely changed. I was saved from drowning in academia. And yes– I’m going to stay in college and get a degree and all those things that people say you should do– but to quote Mark Twain, ‘I am never again going to let schooling interfere with my education.’ Thank you, NaNo.”
– NaNoWriMo Participant

“The Office of Letters and Light fulfills an incredible role–one unique in our society. It is very easy to set aside the quiet dreams of the heart. There is always another chore to be done, another task that awaits. As an attorney who has done a good deal of pro bono work, I know that the OLL might not be what first comes to mind when one thinks of a nonprofit organization or charity. However, for those who have taken part in NaNoWriMo and written more than they ever thought possible, its gifts are nothing less than life-affirming. The OLL, true to its name, is a charity that speaks directly to the soul–to the creative spark, to what it means to fundamentally be human. I am proud to have taken part in NaNoWriMo 2010, and I will be supporting this organization for a long, long time.”
– NaNoWriMo  Participant

“Any writer who’s interested in testing her capability would benefit from Baty’s brainchild, the competition, the encouragement. It’s a program for, by and of writers, and if this 75-year-old grandma can write a spy thriller or two and a historic novel based on a real murder, so can you.”
– NaNoWriMo Participant

“Participating in NaNoWriMo was a watershed experience for me and for my students. All the things I had been preaching and teaching suddenly became real to my students—and to me—as we began putting what we knew about writing into practice: The usefulness of practice and fluency—made clear by the increasing ease with which we met word counts that seemed unattainable at the start. The value of self-discipline and order—demonstrated by the peace that reigned when we set and met daily word counts. The transformative nature of art—discovered when students began realizing that they could write their emotions and their questions into their novels and gain new insight into them. The amazing power of writing to communicate and the communal nature of all art—shown over and over again: when students who had been comparatively voiceless found a voice; when we cheered one another on; when we read each other’s work; when we commiserated, challenged, shared, helped, and celebrated. I’m a fairly able teacher, but I can say with certainty that I never could have accomplished this without NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program.”
–  YWP Teacher/Educator

“It’s pretty much the weirdest, craziest, and most nerve wracking thing you can do. Dedicate a whole month to writing a novel. For fun. And yet thousands across the world have been doing it for more than ten years. That means sitting down at a computer and pounding out almost 2,000 words every single day, for thirty days straight. The result? Maniacal laughter. Frustration and repeatedly asking yourself why you ever signed up to do this in the first place.

Now, here’s the biggest question on everyone’s mind: Why would anyone EVER do this? Give up free time, socializing time, normal time for a whole month just to sit and write a crazy amount of garbage? Well, here’s the real reason: odds are, you will never do it otherwise. You know those stories in your heads, the ones that play across your mind as you’re falling asleep at night, waiting in lines, sitting through boring classes? The ones that are full of thought and of character, funny situations and actual meaning? The ones that we promise ourselves, we will write down… One day. Sometimes we start, maybe get a couple pages or chapters in, but the truth is, that for the most part, we lose our momentum. We think of what has been playing so wonderfully in our head as we look down at what’s actually on paper, and lose hope, tell ourselves we’ll work on it another time. And then never look at it again. NaNo defeats this. NaNoWriMo forces you to write down whatever is in your mind, no matter the amount of sense it has; it gets you to experiment, to find joy in the little things. It allows you to, as Chris Baty, the creator of the event, states, ‘Build without tearing down.’”
– NaNoWriMo Participant