Chris Baty, Program Director
A resident of Oakland, California, Chris has been heading up NaNoWriMo since founding the escapade in 1999. With his startlingly mediocre prose style and complete inability to write credible dialogue, Chris has set a reassuringly low bar for budding novelists everywhere. Chris is an anthropologist by training and a freelance writer by trade; his work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Believer, and Lonely Planet guidebooks. When not bossing strangers around, Chris spends debilitating amounts of time in coffee shops. His mercilessly pants-kicking book, No Plot? No Problem!, is available at your favorite bookstore.
Russell Uman, Rind Wearing Slave of Word Warring Barbarians
Eschewing alliteration this time around, and ashamed at having failed to update these words since 2004, Russ would like you to know that it never gets any easier, but it just keeps getting better. Russ is responsible for everything technical about NaNoWriMo. He likes Los Angeles as much as he likes San Francisco. Los Angeles makes him laugh harder; San Francisco tastes better. Please let Russ know what's on your mind over at the Site Feedback Forum. (photo credit: SUN Zu-Yi)
Tavia Stewart, Young Writers Program Director and Operations Manager
Tavia is not only able to hold down the fort as the Young Writers Program Director at the Office of Letters and Light, she is also able to write novels, plan events for Watchword Press, and run a reading series for the More Cowgirl Writers Collective. She's worked with the genius minds that make up both ZYZZYVA and McSweeney's Publishing, has taught her cat to play fetch, is currently looking to purchase an old bicycle, and is planning to write her 2008 NaNo-novel based on what she finds at weekly garage sales in her neighborhood.
Lindsey Grant, Community Liaison
After Lindsey finished her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Mills College, she stumbled upon the magical place that is the Office of Letters and Light. She could hardly believe that there were so many people in the world who love words as much as she does! She enjoys writing about food and travel, but not quite as much as she enjoys eating food while traveling. She is fighting against inertia and excoriating self-edits in order to finish a novel based on her years as a dog-walker.
Sam Gawthrop, Web Programmer
Sam is an East Coast refugee, who has lived along highway 80 since
immigrating to California, from Oakland to Tahoe, and now Albany. Despite
being a hopeless computer nerd, he spends a good amount of his time
outdoors, backpacking, hiking, rock climbing, skiing, or some exciting and
borderline-miserable combination of those. Sam enjoys writing with run-on
sentences and capricious punctuation, yet lives in mortal fear of anyone
reading what he has written.
Bradford Earle, Shipping Captain
Bradford is a newly minted [adjective] person. He was previously an idea on the East Coast in the wasteland commonly known as [proper noun]. He spends most of his time composing mediocre [noun] and painting marginal works of [noun] in a valiant (albeit ineffective) attempt to impress the woman he [verb]s. His history is a [noun], as ideas are [adverb] difficult to examine. In his new [adjective] form he is likely to be found [verb]ing small bears or imitating [noun] in his free time. He wants to help [pronoun] with any and all insurmountable difficulties (as long as they relate to shipping).
Erin Allday, Municipal Liaison Headmistress
Erin's stalker tendencies and the great pleasure she takes in asking strangers intimate questions about their lives makes her a natural choice to run NaNoWriMo's Municipal Liaison program. Trapped in Berkeley for 12 years, she has worked for several daily newspapers in the Bay Area. When not working 12-hour days writing articles about the global economy that nobody wants to read, Erin spends as much time as possible watching bad television, beating her best time at Minesweeper, taking apart small electrical appliances, and avoiding phone calls.
Cybele May, Site Wrangler
One of NaNoWriMo's far-flung staff members, Cybele lives in Los Angeles where she has ample access to internet at all hours of the day and night. This year marks Cybele's fourth year on staff and possibly the year of her eighth novel. Fear not, she'll have plenty to do in November in addition to noveling and working on fine-tuning the site; she also holds down a full-time job and is getting her re-certification as a whale watching naturalist. When not obsessively noveling, she's obsessively writing plays, blogging for candyblog.net.
Emily Bristow, ML Captain of Capital Ideas
Born to a wealthy Houston family, Emily (or lazym, as she is widely known) was stolen by gypsies from her unattended pram. Her promising career as a pickpocket was cut short one Halloween by an unfortunate incident involving the Chief of Police. Trained to write by a kindly reformatory matron, she was then indentured to an evil software titan in Washington State. During a daring midnight escape, Emily absconded with a stack of company stock. She is now a mixed-media artist and writer of six unfinished NaNo novels. Emily has been the Austin, Texas Municipal Liaison since 2004 and wants YOU to donate to NaNoWriMo today.
Heather Dudley, Forums Moderator
Married with two small children, Heather is the East Coast representive for OLL. After spending more hours than she really likes to think about volunteering on the forums, Heather was invited to take over Forums Moderation from Cybele May. She spends entirely too much time at the computer, not getting sleep, moderating the forums and writing the Perfect Novel (tm). She has discovered (the hard way) that it is physically impossible to have babies and write novels at the same time... it gets on the doctors' nerves. One day, she's gonna make it to the West Coast, and you'll never get rid of her.
Drew Patty, Email Abassador
Drew was raised in the architecturally rich town of Columbus, Indiana. He moved to the Bay Area to pursue his dreams of becoming a Creative Editor for a publishing company. Drew believes that passwords will be the downfall of us all, but he prefers that over some sort of crazy flu. He is very honored to be tapped as NaNoWriMo E-mail Ambassador for a second year in a row. He promises not to abuse his power.
From a young age, Candace's career goals have destined her for poverty. A sophomore English major at UC Berkeley, her greatest ambition is to make a living as a published novelist. She refuses to admit that this is an unreasonable goal. On days when she acknowledges that making money as a writer will be difficult, she considers the idea of teaching English or being a perpetual intern at the Office of Letters and Light---which, coincidentally, also doesn't pay. When not reading or writing, she releases her energies by knitting scarves, traveling with her family, and obsessing over musical theater.
Sarah Panian, Intern
Sarah (known amongst friends as the Grill Master) is currently a senior at UC Berkeley, studying English and psychology. She hopes to write her first novel in November in order to continue her career as an unpublished, under-appreciated author. This is also an excuse to brood more often. Sarah enjoys writing, reading, playing soccer, playing the guitar (albeit poorly and disjointedly), and thinking of what cats would ask for from Santa if their paws did not get in the way of writing their lists.
Jessi Redfield, Intern
Despite (or possibly because of) continuously being told she’s insane for her choice of future career (high school English teacher and author), Jessi is a third-year UC Berkeley student, studying English, creative writing, and Japanese. She is looking forward to her second NaNoWriMo, and has decided not to make a plot since her characters rebelled against her last year. After stalking up on chocolate and caffeine, she can’t wait to ignore her responsibilities this November and dive into more frenzied, sleepless nights, and days when her characters poke her at the most inopportune times.
Sonali Maulik, Intern
When not interning at the Office of Letters and Light, Sonali enjoys running, proofreading for engineering professors, and running away from the people whose work she proofreads. Because of her interests she's getting quite good at running and hopes to participate in her first marathon next year. She's also a senior at UC Berkeley where she's deathly afraid of graduating and getting a full-time job. This will be her fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo.
Elaine Tai, Intern
While trying to figure out her life, Elaine happily found herself at the Office of Letters and Light. She received a Business degree from UC Berkeley in May and soon decided to apply it to the book world. Elaine can often be sighted wandering around bookstores throughout the Bay Area, trying to resist the urge to buy some children's or YA fantasy novel. Her other loves include coffee, tech blogs, and a ridiculous amount of television. She has no idea what her first NaNo-novel will be about, but she is told this is not a problem and takes it as a fun way to procrastinate on grad school applications.