The Office of Letters and Light Blog

Add Some Magic to Your Life

I’ve always been a library lover. Getting my first library card was a momentous occasion, although I proceeded to confuse my mother and the librarian by spending weeks selecting the most random assortment of books possible. (They eventually figured out that I would only pick books that were perfectly square. I wish I could remember my logic for that decision!)

I’ve moved on to books of all shapes and sizes, and the library has been a stalwart companion over the years. These days, I spend a lot of my time working with libraries through our Come Write In program. We partner with libraries all over the world to help give writers a space to find each other, and explore their imaginations, free of charge.

That’s a little bit of magic, I think. A building that offers you the whole world, for free. We’re going to keep working with librarians all over the world for Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo, and now Camp NaNoWriMo, too. And we’re going to keep going to libraries, too, because everyone needs a little magic in their lives sometimes. 

So celebrate National Library Week with us, and remember that you belong at your library. Stop by your local library for a little bit of magic, and maybe tell them about Come Write In while you’re there.

- Sarah

Photo by Flickr user duncan

Come Write In: King County Library

Come Write In, our initiative to bring writers into libraries and indie bookstores, has blown up this year! We’re thrilled that so many libraries and bookstores are participating! The King County Library System has gone above and beyond and is offering a month-long program of events! We’re so impressed by this line-up, and if we lived in live in King County (Washington), we’d totally go to these classes! If you live in the area, we encourage you to go! For a full listing with dates and times, check out the KCLS website. Here are a few classes that really caught our eye:

Zombies and the Secret Ingredients of Ghoulish Writing
Presented by Kevin Emerson
Zombies are everywhere! At least they’re appearing everywhere in fiction. Write your own fiendish tale of the undead with this author of middle grade and young adult books. Chills, thrills and tons of writing guaranteed.

Writing Successful Sciences Fiction and Fantasy
Presented by Nancy Kress
Science Fiction and Fantasy books share the requirements of good writing with other types of fiction, but they also have some peculiar requirements of their own. Learn how to add these elements to your story from a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author.

Make Your Own Comic Book
Presented by David Lasky
Learn to design a simple character and plan a story to create your own comic book. No drawing experience required.

Thank you, KCLS, for opening up your library to Wrimos this November!

Any cool stuff going on at your local library for NaNoWriMo? Tell us about it in the comments!

Check out Come Write In!

For the most part, the exponential growth of NaNoWriMo has been a good thing for just about everybody. Every year, tens of thousands of new people discover the benefits and thrills of the kamikaze literary marathon, the list of published NaNo-novels grows a little longer, and the staff at the Office of Letters and Light gets that much closer to international legislation requiring every citizen of the world to write a novel in November.

But leaving aside our plans for world domination for a moment, there is one group of people who greet that skyrocketing participant number with an equal mix of terror and delight: our volunteer Municipal Liaisons. The more people we welcome to the NaNoWriMo fold, the more challenging it becomes to find a free location to host parties and write-ins in our hundreds of regions all over the world.

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Showing indie bookstores the love

Last year, San Francisco Bay Area bookstores opened their doors to local Wrimos as part ofNaNoWriMo’s new program Come Write In: Independent Bookstores.

Our mission?To build a relationship between local writers and their bookstore neighbors. Come Write In: Independent Bookstores provides a community for our participants while supporting the local bookstores we love so much and want to thrive in neighborhoods everywhere.

This year we are taking Come Write In: Independent Bookstores nationwide, and we need your help in getting the word out there!

Participating bookstores receive a listing and a link on our website, a customizable press release, a free Come Write In kit that includes bookmarks, a poster, and static cling “Write your novel here!” stickers… and the adoration of our participants and supporters around the country.

All we ask is that the bookstore provides a designated space for a writer or two to sit and bash out their novels for a couple of hours during the month of November.

If you know of an independent bookstore that might be interested in a hosting a novelist—or a few—this November, they can drop us a line at cwi@lettersandlight.org.